Prayer in the PET scan....

 So, today I realized that there's even a weirder place to pray than the tanning bed... the machine you slide into for a PET scan. Now, I realize that there are probably many people who pray in those machines because they are face to face with illnesses that they are scared of. Some pray for healing, some pray for strength to confront whatever they will learn after their scan, some pray that when they die their kids won't fight over their stuff. Hopefully, some pray that Jesus will take their old wicked heart and make it new. If that machine would lead someone to their knees (figuratively) at the feet of Jesus then that experience would be worth it. But I doubt that most do "bow the knee" in the place where it makes even the toughest seem weak-kneed.

This is what they put my Gman in today.

How do I know this? Because my Gman just had a PET scan today. To give you the full picture let me start at the beginning.

 I didn't accompany him. He and I are not very "needy" people - he's gone into and out of surgery before without me there and I could easily do the same if it wasn't his intense need to protect me that draws a line in the sand for him. He had an abnormal stress test which led him to have this procedure done.

 We take Paul's command seriously in that we are

 "... not anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Phil 4:6)


Neither of us felt there was anything to be concerned about so I went about my business homeschooling the kids and he left for his PET scan appointment.

He arrived and waited to be taken back to have a portal-type needle put in his arm for them to add fluids during the test. Unfortunately the girl who did the injection didn't connect something fast enough and his blood spewed out everywhere. He joked with her not to stress, he's seen worse before and as her interest in his comment was piqued she asked him to explain what he meant. Stories, one after another, of his interesting escapades while in state and federal law enforcement ensued and by the time he was laying on the scan table, the nurse had shared them with the tech as well. By the time he was strapped in, he was definitely BMOC in the eyes of the medical staff.

They had previously asked him if he was claustrophobic before they even made the appointment and did so again today.  Both times, he told them he wasn't.  They asked him to lift his arms and lay them in little channels that kept them still over his head.  I suppose that stretched his upper body to enable the scan to be viewed well.  Then they slowly moved the bed into the machine. He closed his eyes to protect them from the laser that was at the front of the machine and was promptly told he could open them again. What happened next shocked and embarrassed this man that carries a gun for a living. The man that breaks people's doors in to arrest them and dons bullet proof vests like surgeons wear scrubs.

He began to absolutely FREAK out inside!

He politely asked if they could move him out again and wondered if there wasn't another way this scan could be accomplished. He admitted, mortified, that he "just didn't like being in there". But, because I hadn't gone with him he couldn't be given a drug to calm him and that was the only machine in the state of MS that could do the scan that he needed. So, the big tough guy that was moved into the scanner came out minutes later the  not so tough guy that realized he was pretty claustrophobic.

There was nothing he could do, and so, he took a deep breath and said "Come on then, let's do this". Thirty minutes seemed like hours as he closed his eyes and prayed diligently for God to calm his spirit. While laying there he realized that it was more than the claustrophobia that bothered him, it was the vulnerable position he was laying in. Arms locked above his head, straps around his body, inside a machine that was so close to his face that he barely could move. Gmen just don't get put in those positions.... E.V.E.R. .... or they are dead. Then, to make it worse, they injected medicine in his port to make his heart race. He went from feeling vulnerable, to anxious, to light headed and dizzy... Those 30 minutes seemed like 5 hours. For the first time in his memory he was totally submissive - totally and completely submissive - anyone at anytime could have come up to him and done anything to him and he had no power over it. He finally knew what it was like to submit himself to God.

⁵ Trust in the LORD with all your heart
   and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
   and he will make your paths straight

(Prvbs 3:5-6)

This is my Gman.

Another real life lesson was the realization that although God got him through that experience it wasn't in any way easy, smooth, quick, or tied with a nice neat bow. It was an agonizing experience. Every second of every minute that he was in that scanner was breathtaking and not in a good way. How often do we recognize that? We so often think that just praying through something will give us ease in it's midst. He never promises that. Sometimes we have to trudge through something that He's put in front of us like we are struggling to walk a mile in knee-deep mud. Does He get us through it? Sure. Was it a miraculously easy thing to get through? Not one bit. 

He is feeling much better now that the scan is over. It's not been read yet so we really don't know what the specifics of his issues are or if he will ever have to undergo that procedure again. It's precious of God to love us so much that He will put us into positions on occasion (or regularly in my case) that make us realize who WE are and Who HE is and that there is no comparison. 

None of us like to feel or be vulnerable, especially in the extreme way the Gman was today. But if our Creator God wants that vulnerability from us it is only because He knows that only in that position will we be able to be fully free.