Three years ago I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. After months and months of testing and testing, the day finally came when we had an answer. It wasn’t a good answer, but it was an answer. I started meds and the adventure began. Over the next 3 years I have changed meds several times as things were not getting any better. Finally, in the last couple of months I changed specialists and heard words that made me flat angry, “Peg, you have been misdiagnosed. I don’t see any signs of active disease and by looking at your test results from several years back, I do not believe you ever had this disease.”
Hallelujah, great news in that I did not have this disease! Frustrating that I had been pouring drugs into my body that not only did nothing, but had the potential to be harmful. Thankful and frustrated were my moods of the day. If I had seen Dr. Number 1 I felt as if I might strangle him, but God so gently reminded me that doctors are human, and make mistakes just like I do. (Disclaimer-my doc was not local)
I know in my lifetime that I have “misdiagnosed” people. I came to a snap decision about them, only to find out later that I was completely wrong. I had decided that they were this, and they were actually that! The same had happened to me More than once someone has come to me, and I am so thankful they did, to clarify what I had meant by something, or what I had actually said. If they hadn’t of confronted me, they would have completely misdiagnosed the whole situation.
Philippians 1:9-10 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.
James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
We can be so quick to make a snap judgement, and man oh man the harm we can do. We can sow some incredibly unhealthy seeds into the lives of folks just by the way we “diagnose” who we think they are.
We live in a world that needs Jesus, sometimes we are the only Bible that people see. The question is, what will they see in me? John 13:34-35 A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
