Each week the Pastoral Care Department offers a new devotion for Norton Healthcare employees. This week’s topic is “Do you Want to be Well?” by the Rev. Joel Sturtevant, D.Min., The Reverend Doctor William J. Schultz Community Service Chaplain.
Do you Want to be Well?
The Rev. Joel Sturtevant, D.Min.
The Reverend Doctor William J. Schultz Community Service Chaplain
A former seminary professor, William Hendricks, once suggested that it appears there are three ways to do life these days – as a coper, a chooser or a changer.
Copers have life happen to them. The focus of their lives is to simply cope with what life throws their way. Unable for whatever reason to choose the shape of their lives, they experience life as a given and try to find the best way to respond to it. Although we all have times when we find life hard to cope with, copers do this as a way of life. A coper is often a survivor, and sometimes a victim, with all the frustration that comes with living on someone else’s terms. There is a story in the Gospels (John 5:1-9) that shows Jesus encountering a physically disabled man at a fountain in Jerusalem famous for healing the first person who jumped into the pool after the water was stirred up. The man told Jesus he had been waiting 38 years for someone to help him get into the pool. In his mind, he was waiting for someone else to do something for him he did not or could not choose for himself. He was waiting 38 years for someone else to make his life different. Jesus asked him if he wanted to be a chooser: “Do you want to be well?”
A chooser is one who makes choices to shape her own life. If a chooser doesn’t find fulfillment in a job, that person chooses to take night classes in order to move up to another job that is more satisfying, instead of just complaining how much the current job is hated. Choosers find a way to make some choices so that life is more on their terms, rather than simply someone else’s terms. When we make choices, we take actions to shape our own lives that give us a sense of control and well-being. People who make such choices are often responsible, accountable individuals who feel good about themselves. Sometimes things happen to us totally beyond our control and we may feel powerless, but the more choices we can make, even if they are small ones, the stronger we feel.
A changer is one who makes choices to make things better, not just for themselves but for others as well. They are the difference makers. They are the change agents that make life better for all of us. In that same Gospel story, Jesus was the difference maker in that he encouraged the man to take responsibility for himself and brought healing into his life. We become difference makers when we relate to our family and co-workers with compassion, using our creativity and energy to find solutions to problems we all face. Each day, as we encounter family members, co-workers, patients and patients’ family members, we have the opportunity to make someone else’s life a little different. May God bless you as you bless the lives of others.
Which are you?
