Little Word Packs Big Meaning

Williamson Source

by David Cassidy, Pastor at Christ Community,Franklin

I love words. Their beauty, utility, history, and flexibility are intoxicating. The magnificent poet Emily Dickinson wrote, “I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.” It is a good week when I encounter and find myself embraced by a new word. This is not because the extent of one’s vocabulary is a ground for self-congratulation, but because the new word or phrase is an introduction, a visa, to a larger world. The word bids us Welcome.

There are countries to which words take us, however, that can be deeply unhappy and unpleasant lands; words can introduce us to painful places where our hearts are broken and the tears fall. A new word or phrase, one that until now had remained backstage and out of the general conversation, can be a rude and unwelcome intruder into our lives.

This is especially so of words with Latin roots that float through the corridors of research hospitals.

Like ‘Choledochal Cyst’. According to one research paper I read, “Choledochal cysts (CCs) are rare medical conditions with an incidence in the western population of 1 in 100,000–150,000 live births…” That’s a phrase I learned this week, one which I wish I’d had no reason to learn.

I’ve spent a great deal of the past 35 years wandering around hospital corridors, sitting with worried families in ICU’s, and praying with patients facing a difficult diagnosis and an even more challenging surgery and treatment protocol. In the course of that journey I’ve learned some words that professors in seminaries don’t cover. I’m adding ‘Choledochal Cyst’ to the list. A young couple in Texas I care about just discovered their two month old infant daughter has this condition, and the prognosis is, well, difficult. They are the 1 in 150,000.

That can happen here too. Thankfully, my friends in Texas are not only surrounded with a loving family, great neighbors, and a caring church community, but with skilled medical staff and first rate facilities as well; they can fight this disease with the best of weapons. That’s good news. The same good news is true here as well. I haven’t been here two years yet but I’ve had plenty of walks and waits in hospitals, here in Franklin and up the road in Nashville as well. You’ve heard it said that our community has a church on every corner? Well, add to that brilliant medical personnel at every turn as well. I’ve seen it first hand. Thankfully.

The next time you pray for a family member or friend that’s in a war with a life-threatening illness, remember to pray for their caregivers as well, for their surgeons and doctors, for their nurses and techs, for the therapists and the researchers. I pray God heals the diseases, but I pray just as passionately for the medical scientists that give their lives to find the cures. They’re all around us in Williamson and Davidson counties, and there’s a beautiful little phrase you can say to them the next time you see them, whether in a hospital or at the grocery. It isn’t even difficult to pronounce. Just look them in the eye and say, “Thank you.”

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind”, wrote Rudyard Kipling. ‘Thank you’ is likely just the right prescription our brilliant medical community may need most days. I hope you’ll join me in spreading the word.

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