The Operating Table

Hi!  My name is Holly and I am a codependent.  This is nothing new.  I'm pretty sure that I came out of the womb as a codependent.  

A few years ago, I was talking with a friend about a struggle that someone in my life was having.  He said to me, "Holly, sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to leave them on the operating table."  When God wants to work and move in someone's life, sometimes He has to put them on the operating table.  He has to dig into old wounds and clean them out.  He has to transplant in new thoughts or ideas.  Sometimes, He has to break a stony heart.  The surgery that God does on someone is painful for them, but it is also painful for me.  I am an empath and I feel things very deeply.  It is incredibly hard for me to watch someone go through a hard thing.  I want to fix it.  I want to make things better or easier.  I want to take the burden.  However, it is best for the person, if I can trust God enough to leave them on the operating table.

I have been practicing this concept of leaving people on the operating table for the past three years.  It's incredibly hard.  In the last year, I have had to practice A LOT.  Recently, God keeps using my own surgery experience to reflect on this concept.  I desperately needed spine surgery.  I had been in pain and suffering for a long time.  I needed to get on that operating table.  If anyone who truly loved me, could have seen what I was enduring on that operating table, they would have pulled me off of it.  As they saw the drill shatter my vertebrae, they would have decided the surgeon didn't know what he was doing.  They would have stopped the surgery.  As the surgeon burned through the first drill, and grabbed the second, they would have decided that it was all too much for me to endure. They would have stopped the surgery.  The thing is, though, I needed the surgery.  It didn't matter how bad things looked, I needed every ounce of what the surgeon was doing.  I am almost 6 months out from surgery and I am walking pain free.  I am healthier than I've been in a very long time.  I actually want to get out and move.  I am so grateful for this body that will move when I ask it to.  If anyone would have pulled me off the operating table...I wouldn't be enjoying the beautiful result of all that pain.

In this season, there are still people in my life that are going through really hard times.  I have been so proud of myself because I've been fighting off the urge to remove them from the operating table.  I know that the pain is necessary for their healing.  However, God convicted me last weekend.  He showed me that while I am willing to leave the person on the operating table, I am still standing right next to Him shouting orders into His ear while He's operating.  I am watching the Master Physician do what He is trained to do and my arrogant self thinks that I should tell Him what I think He's doing wrong.  Not only am I giving Him directions, occasionally, I like to grab His arm and "help."  He finally said, "Enough!!  Get out of my operating room so I can do what I came here to do."

I was sharing this revelation with a friend and she said something that hit me with the truth so hard that I could barely breathe.  She said, "Holly, not only do you need to get out of that operating room, there is a table in OR2 waiting just for you."  As soon as the words came out of her mouth, I knew they were true.  Over the past month, God had been revealing areas in my own life that He needed to work on.  I had been so focused on what He was doing in other people that I lost site of all that still needs to be healed in me.  

So, I am willingly climbing onto the table in OR2.  I wish that God would give us some Propofol and knock us out so we don't have to feel the pain of the surgery....but He promises to comfort us during the process.  

Is there someone that you need to leave on the operating table?  Is there an OR table with your name on it?  Are you willing to let God do what He needs to do in yourself and others?  If my own surgery is any indication, I promise it will be worth it.