Thought for the Day Healing - Four

Tansen, 1976

In my ‘thoughts’, I have been remembering the words of the French surgeon, Ambroise Paré, ‘I dressed the wounds, but God healed them’.

When I was a medical student in Nepal, fifty years ago, I was apprentice to Dr Jonathan Yoder, an American surgeon. He had spent most of his life as a missionary in India.

Over the years, Dr Yoder had seen great advances in medical work – medicine for tuberculosis, for example, immunisation against polio and diphtheria, and the antibiotics that were so useful in surgery. He remembered a patient from the early years of his career in the United States. The man died because of a small wound he suffered while clearing snow. Antibiotics would have saved his life.

In the hospital in Nepal, we had all the usual facilities, but disease, povery and lack of food had a big impact on the patients.

Jonathan Yoder was the first surgeon I had ever seen praying openly in the operating theatre before surgery. He used to ask God for his blessing on his work and thank the Creator for the medicines we had available to use.

But Dr Yoder knew, as every surgeon does, that there are wounds which cannot be healed.

He wrote, ‘I have some sad memories and scars, but through it all I see the Lord at work. I am happy for the life He has given me.’