Gratitude In Our Hearts To God
by Dan Jones, M.D.
Colossians 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
My patients in the leprosy community in Pusan, Korea taught me many lessons in my time with them. One of the most valuable of these was a real lesson about gratitude.
Our clinic, held twice a month on the church property focused on general medical problems. There was a government-sponsored clinic in the community that provided medication and testing for leprosy. A focus in that clinic was to assure no patients living in the community had an active form of the disease that could be transmitted to others. But, there was no clinic available to deal with the myriad of other medical problems. Travel outside the community to regular health facilities was difficult, both because of poor transportation and the humiliation of stares and rejection the patients experienced.
Over the years of working with the patients, I found them to be so grateful for anything done for them. What we provided in our clinic was really quite basic. We helped manage chronic illnesses like hypertension and diabetes. And we provided comfort for complications of the illness and adverse effects of the leprosy medications by providing analgesics and medications for gastrointestinal disorders. We had no sophisticated diagnostic capabilities and our formulary was quite limited as we used donated medications. Despite these limitations, working in the clinic always provided a boost for my spirits because of the sweet, grateful attitude of the patients.
This gratitude from the patients was typically expressed individually at the end of a visit. But one day, my wife, Lydia, and I experienced an expression of gratitude that was overwhelming. We awoke that day to several inches of snow. Though snow was common only a few miles inland, this much snow was quite uncommon in our seaside city. The snow paralyzed traffic. Schools, businesses, and clinics would be closed until the streets were cleared. We were scheduled to have a clinic that morning in the leprosy village. We decided against attempting the drive over a mountain pass to get to the clinic, assuming no patients would be able to attend the clinic anyway since the patients walked to the clinic. We were certain the weather would prevent any from reaching the clinic.
But as the hour for the clinic to begin approached, Lydia and I decided that even if one patient braved the weather for their appointment, we needed to be there to provide the medication. With prayer and trepidation, we managed the drive over the mountain and to the clinic site. All seemed quiet. It seemed we had taken the risk of the drive to no avail. But, as we entered the building, to our astonishment, there in the waiting area sat every patient scheduled to be seen that day. When we walked through the door, those patients literally stood and applauded. Lydia and I learned something that day about gratitude. We were grateful God had allowed us to come to know such gracious people with such gifts for gratitude.
Lord, make me grateful for all you and others do for me.
Dan Jones, M.D., MACP, FAHA, a board-certified Internist, a former medical missionary to Korea, professor of medicine at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, Dean of the School of Medicine, and Chancellor of the University of Mississippi until 2015. Dr. Dan Jones is a member of CMDA.
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