Sunday Morning Serenity

I woke up this morning thinking about salt—specifically, salt’s power within our bodies.

Just this week, Dave and I came home from what I think was his fifth hospital stay since June. I had to call the paramedics on Christmas Day, and we rang in the New Year at what we now consider our St. Vincent’s condo. It all started with salt—a dangerous drop in sodium, likely caused by the joint efforts of an infection and other issues.

I’ve since learned from a sister-friend who’s an experienced nurse that there’s a very narrow window of sodium levels where your body functions properly. Too much salt, we all know, is bad for your heart. But it’s also bad for your brain. Too little, and you become incoherent—even run the risk of seizures if it drops low enough. You can’t say your own name. And you begin making up words that only you understand. It’s a little like that poem “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll—the words sound like they should make sense, but they don’t:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Since June, we’ve also been on a healing journey with pressure wounds. And as I’ve helped Dave’s nurses attend to those, I’ve been amazed by the human body’s power to heal, sometimes on its own, sometimes with the help of modern medicine. Either way, it's a remarkable creation. We are so perfectly balanced. We need exactly this, no more, no less. We are “fearfully and wonderfully made”:

I will praise You,
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
Psalm 139:14

Many of you know “Mama Sue” Garrett, and you’ve been blessed and strengthened by her faith-driven journey through cancer treatment. Her message, “Be salt and light,” has stayed with me down this road that Dave has traveled with patience and courage. It comes from Matthew 5:13-16:

“You are the salt of the earth;
but if the salt loses its flavor,
how shall it be seasoned?
It is then good for nothing
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

“You are the light of the world.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket,
but on a lampstand, and it gives light
to all who are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see
your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.