There is something fascinating and intriguing to young and old alike about blowing bubbles. To me, seeing those cute bubbles forming from a tiny layer of soap, getting bigger, and flying higher and higher was one of my childhood’s fondest memories.

The bubbles created by these bubble guns are always a joy to watch. But just as they capture our hearts and minds when they form and fly away, they disappoint us when they burst and vanish. Unfortunately, no matter how beautiful they appear, each one will sooner or later burst and dissipate into thin air.

In life, each one of us encounters people who say sweet words, show great smiles and nice deeds. But sooner or later, we discover that many of the words and deeds that appear to be nice are just bubbles. Nothing but bubbles that are empty on the inside. Pretty bubbles made up and blown by someone for us, or created by us to those around us. They look and appear fascinating but as soon as we hold and embrace them, they burst and vanish.

In my many years of practicing Family Medicine, I’ve heard thousand of tales from broken, hurt, depressed, and anxious souls. People like us who embraced with hope and held on tightly to nice words and promises that turned out to be bubbles. Nothing but bubbles, false promises, and disappointments.

Empty Bubbles that hurt

Unlike the fun of seeing soap bubbles bursting as we hold them, false words and deeds that resemble beautiful bubbles hurt. More specifically, fake words and pretend actions of love, kindness, acceptance, forgiveness, value, and commitment damage hearts and minds. They’re like bubbles in the air destined to vanish, and to let our hearts down.

Friend, the long list of medications that I can use for my patients’ depression and anxiety is a marvel of modern medicine. Yet, healing begins when the false bubbles of empty words and promises are replaced with genuine love and hope.

My own journey of faith has brought me to finding in God’s Bible promises and written Word a genuine source of hope and love. A source where God’s beautiful words of love, hope, faith and compassion are like bubbles that never burst or vanish, and that I can finally touch, hold and embrace.

Views expressed here are only of the author, and do not represent the views of any other organization or entity. Information in this blog are not meant to be medical advice. Please see your medical provider or psychologist for any of your medical or psychological concerns.

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I still remember the first time I set foot in my Family Practice residency outpatient clinic in Minnesota. A jubilant Family Medicine resident who wanted to be every doctor, nurse, medical assistant, and office staff’s best friend and colleague.

Consequently, I was elated to be in a caring team whose sole purpose and mission was to deliver great medical care to regularly scheduled patients. One of my team members was a medical assistant in her thirties who roomed patients, checked their vitals, and assisted me to meet their medical needs. We were an awesome team, or that what I thought. I did my best to be very pleasant, friendly, encouraging, and kind every time we worked together.

Shakedown

But alas, all my nostalgic feelings of great camaraderie and teamship came to a standstill. The residency clinic manager summoned me to her office and said that my medical assistant officially complained to her about me. Something about leaving a piece of paper in the wrong work area!

“What? She said that…but why, I don’t understand. We’re supposed to be a team who work together and care for one another. She could’ve told me,” I said barely able to hide my deep disappointment. The imaginary team comradeship I believed to be real turned out to be wishful thinking. I was a naive medical student just turned doctor who envisioned compassion, caring, grace, and unity always prevail among all. I was hurt.

Sensing my dismay, shock, and disappointment, the caring residency clinic manager looked at me with compassion and said, ” Do you have family members who care about you?”. It took me some time to understand the depth and wisdom of her question. Probably, she was able to see my aspiration to be part of a compassionate and caring medical team. A new physician who wanted to face the complex challenges of medical care; diseases and death; united in a team and not divided.

Chasing Compassion

The journey of being a physician starting with medical school, through years of residency, and unto the many years of practice are marred by many undesirable moments where no compassion is found. Moments and experiences where grace, mercy and compassion seem at times to cease.

Whether we’re in medicine or not, the question, ” Do you have family members who care about you?”, rings true to each one of us. We all crave, need, and live our lives chasing compassion. When I’m treated with grace mercy, and compassion, I feel valued, loved and appreciated.

Love is nothing but lust, and fake useless nice and polished words without genuine words and acts of mercy and compassion.

Certainly, we need compassion to pick us up, and keep us going in a life where all of us , doctors, patients, men, women, rich and poor of all races, experience more shakedowns and letdowns than we care to remember.

Finding & Giving Away Compassion

In a dog eat dog world where compassion can be illusive and hard to find even among friends, lovers, and family members, generations before us found their solace in this divine words “Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not.” Lamentations 3:22 (New King James Version)

Many years after my residency clinic manager asked me, ” Do you have family members who care about you?”, my patients gradually became like family members to care for. Each one of us is that family member meant to care about patients and others in their moments of joy, laughter, failures, tears, and fears. After all, I know how much divine mercy and compassion, and the compassion of many people, have blessed me and changed my life. Our life are forever changed and renewed with compassion.

Finally, I know ( and I’m sure you do too) the hurt and loneliness of being denied compassion, whether in a small residency clinic in Minnesota or elsewhere. But, I also know the dignity, value, and the love felt and experienced when I’m touched by compassion. We all do.

Hence, this is our calling as healers, and human beings; chase after compassion, find it, fully receive it, and freely give it to others.

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You see it everywhere. And not just in race relationship and acts of prejudice.

Even our relationships are marred in Spontaneous Automatic Biases that have been deeply ingrained in us from early childhood. Life experiences, parents, families, friends, culture, Hollywood, and the media all contribute to them.

With Hollywood, the media, and fashion industries setting the standards for  what is  culturally unappealing and what is attractive ( confident, wealthy, debonair, brash, smart, famous, passionate, tall, and very handsome men, and young, beautiful, attractive, fit, fashionable,  blonde, and slim figure women,) one often sees men and women entangled in a web of biases that embroil one against the other. We are all burdened by such biased standards for beauty and appeal that only few of us can meet. The end result is many will experience the disappointment, discouragement, hurt and the unfairness of being biased against.  

Spontaneous Automatic Biases (SAB) lead us to belittle and reduce our own value and that of others. It leads those who are prisoners of its evil grasp into a path of unfairly and immaturely accusing, persecuting, judging, and sentencing others before the benefit of a fair hearing.

SAB makes us view others (and at times even ourselves) instantaneously as guilty until proven innocent instead of innocent until proven guilty.

How many of us likes to be viewed as inferior, damaged goods, old and useless, lazy, fool, idiot and an imbecile until proven otherwise. Yet, this is how spontaneous automatic biases make us view others, and even ourselves, causing havoc and much damage to those on the receiving end.

Unfair biases hurt, demean, lessen, and can potentially destroy those subjected to them.

They can snuff off a young child’s dreams to be all what God created her or him to be.

They can shake the sense of value and worth in the hearts of both young and old.

SAB send an ominous sign and unloving message to its recipients declaring that the inner character, high moral standards, good hard work and discipline, and inherent God-given value of each and everyone is of no significance or worth.

Friends, changing our biases and our SAB can’t happen by reading more books, listening to more lectures, or even memorizing Biblical verses. Such a seismic change can only occur when we admit our biases to ourselves, invite God to dwell in us, and ask for His forgiveness for the wrongs that our biases have caused. Our hearts must begin to change starting with those erroneous thoughts and beliefs about ourselves and others. So, help us God.

Here are the thoughts and beliefs that must change, and be replaced by what’s right, true and excellent:

Thinking of ourselves (or of others) as better, greater, higher, and more valuable than others because of our race, color, wealth, degrees, looks, position, name or fame. God truly resists the proud, and pride comes before the fall as the Bible warns us.

Thinking of others ( or of ourselves) as less, inferior, of no value, unworthy, lazy, easy, dumb or insignificant because of their race, color, culture, looks, appearance, sex, handicap, religion, choices, life views, or age. God loves us all, and He offers forgiveness through Jesus Christ to everyone regardless of color, race, looks, or wealth as the Bible tells us.

Today, we live in a world littered with the toxic effects of biases and prejudices. Many are hurt, and as the saying goes “Hurting people, hurt people.” I’m guided today by two Biblical verse that steady my response and calm my soul when I’m subjected to the flaming arrows of SAB.  I hope that you too will find solace in these two verses.

Do not say, “I’ll pay you back for this wrong!” Wait for the LORD, and he will avenge you.

Proverb 20:22

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:21

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Toxic Biases

Overcoming Our Biases

The online site Dictionary.com defines bias as an “Inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair.”

 Spontaneous is defined as “Performed or occurring as a result of a sudden impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus”

Automatic means “Done or occurring spontaneously, without conscious thought or attention.”

You won’t find the phrase Spontaneous Automatic Biases (SAB) anywhere else because I coined it myself. Years of living and experiencing the school of life, both personally and professionally as a physician, have left me convinced that no one is immune to SAB. We have all been subjected to bias, and just as likely have subjected others to its harmful effects.

How many of us harbor “Inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair.” What kind of biases do you and I have towards ourselves, and others?

I call it SAB because biased opinions, decisions, words, or behaviors can come at us from others, or from us to others instantaneously, and unexpectedly much like a predator suddenly attacking its prey. We see SAB everywhere. It’s there when we opine about others and when others form opinions about us based on looks, height, color, wealth, profession, culture, or race instead of skills, good character and strong moral stands. You see it at work between lords and peasants, leaders and those they lead, step- families and in-laws, and amongst friends and strangers.

Since setting foot in America, and for many years as a resident and a practicing physician, I heard and experienced enough stories that meet and exceed the criteria of Spontaneous Automatic Biases. Some of those included statements like “Africans are lazy” and “ Do people there live on trees.” Other stories included patients who declined medical care because a physician or a nurse wasn’t the right race, and a white patient in Minnesota who refused to let a brilliant white South African surgeon who practiced in a prestigious surgical group in the Twin Cities remove his diseased gallbladder.

 “He has a foreign accent. I don’t want him to do my surgery,” said the patient to a white American surgeon in the same Minnesota practice where I was doing a surgical rotation as a resident. To his credit, the white American surgeon refused to do the gallbladder surgery and told the patient the inappropriateness of what he said.

 “He is an excellent surgeon who is well educated. You need to go back to him for your surgery.”

Do you have deeply hidden biases in your heart that shape your opinions, words, and behaviors? Do we have spontaneous automatic biases that wound those around us?

I remember when I first came to America, I had a culturally biased view about western women. They were often portrayed in the American movies that we all watched overseas, the magazines we read, and in the traditional society that I was nurtured in, as generally wild and of loose moral standards. My loving dad’s strongest advice to me as I embarked on my journey to America was “Women in America will knock on your door. When a woman in America knocks on your door don’t open it. Let your school and studies be the most important thing in your life.”

Apparently, Hollywood and the media has succeeded in presenting to the whole world its version of womanhood depicting and sadly exploiting all that is sensual and sexual about American and Western women. Thus, it has created a biased view among many people from strict and traditional societies, namely that women are wild, easy, or loose. Sadly, I believe a lot of Hollywood’s biased rendition of women has been believed, copied, and duplicated by young children, teenagers, and adults thus shaping much of society’s norms, beliefs, and behaviors.

As for me, coming from a traditional upbringing to America, the heavy Hollywood influence on the culture has solidified such biased thinking and beliefs. It took me time and God’s help and grace to overcome these biases and see what is right and true in God’s view. What about you? Do biases affect your opinions, view of life, words, and action? And how can we overcome our Spontaneous Automatic Biases?

Until next time, I’ll reflect on this Bible verse that reminds me of God’s view on what really matters.

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

1 Samuel 16:7

Views expressed here are only of the author, and do not represent the views of any other organization or entity. Information in this blog are not meant to be medical advice. Please see your medical provider or psychologist for any of your medical or psychological concerns.

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There was a time in my life, during my adolescence, when I didn’t have a clue as what to do, and what my purpose and mission in life was supposed to be. All what I was able to figure out was my realization that I have deep inner soul needs that go beyond my physical needs for a secure home, a place to sleep, and food to eat. We will all, sooner or later, come to the discovery of our deep rooted, and mountain high need to be loved, valued, and accepted.

There is no argument that we all have a long list of wants, asks, and needs. And we often confuse our soul’s deep and God-created inner needs with superficial and fleeting hosts of unfulfilling asks, pleasure driven wants, and greedy “needs”.

But in a world so saturated with deception, manipulation, lies, greed, lust, betrayal and anger that continuously affect our thoughts, emotions, and actions, WHAT do we really need?

As I reflect on the needs of my own heart and soul, and those of the thousands of patients that I’ve listened to and treated throughout the years, I feel firmly convinced that WHAT we all desperately need can’t be adequately, permanently, or fully satisfied in what our world offers. Worldly praises and pleasures, riches and relationships can’t fully, certainly, or adequately meet our inner cries of the heart, or heal its deep hurts and wounds. The evil words and deeds, wear and tear, use and abuse that we’re subjected to, or that we subject others to, need a salve of perfect love that isn’t found in this world, or in any of WHAT it offers.

So friend, what does my heart and yours need?

Here’s a list of our deep inner needs that’s worth pondering upon

Forgiveness/Freedom/Faith, Approval, Redemption, Acceptance/Assurance, Hope/Help/Healing, Love, Value, Companionship, Intimacy, and Security/Safety/Strength.

To meet all these vital needs, you and I have to continually decide on WHAT we must seek and have in order to meet our needs. Am I Waiting/Worshiping, Hoping, Acknowledging, and Trusting (WHAT) in people, relationships, success and whatever looks and sound believable?

Or, am I Waiting/Worshiping, Hoping, Acknowledging, and Trusting God to meet all the deep inner needs of my soul. I believe, it’s through having faith in the truth of God’s Word that my soul encounters His perfect Love which is The Ultimate Unconditional Love that meets all of my inner longings and needs.

Thank God for the unselfish love, help, and support that we’ve all received in one way or another from many wonderful people in our lives. Such people are true blessings and are like light in the darkness of the many negative life’s experiences that we’ve all encountered. The truth is no matter how loving and supportive anyone in our lives is, the ultimate source and giver of love and all blessings is God. We’re only resources, much like tiny branches of a tall red forest tree, and not The Source of love and Life the Almighty God.

Our human tendency is to make an idol to worship of anything, and anyone whom we assume could fulfill and meet our inner needs, comfort, and soothe our wounds. But this will make us sooner or later worshipers of people and things who hope in vain to find perfect love where none is found causing us more harm and soul injury.

So, WHAT is the Source of love and life that will meet all my needs and heal my soul? Who is the Source that will meet all your heart’s needs?

Friends, the answer to these questions will either make us or break us. We must choose wisely if we are to find the ultimate Source of our Forgiveness/Freedom/Faith, Approval, Redemption, Acceptance/Assurance, Hope/Help/Healing, Love, Value, Companionship, Intimacy, and Security/Strength.

The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

Psalm 23:1 (NIV)

Views expressed here are only of the author, and do not represent the views of any other organization or entity. Information in this blog are not meant to be medical advice. Please see your medical provider or psychologist for any of your medical or psychological concerns.

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Friends, we live in a world jam-packed with lies and awash in the darkness of deception.

We’re all engulfed, immersed, and surrounded by dark oceans of lies. I’m not just talking about a deceptive used car salesman (apologies to those who sell cars. Not all of them are bad) who wants to sell you a lemon or a clunker car with a life span of few days. Lies and deception is what we see, hear, and experience throughout our earthly life span.

Everywhere around us, we see, hear and experience deception and lies. Some of these lies are so cleverly diluted with a 1 to 99% truth that make them believable and trustworthy. It’s in the news, in special interest groups with specific agendas, in social media, and in words and actions we hear and experience from friends or foes. It’s in you and me if we choose to lie and deceive others to satisfy our pleasures or to accomplish some selfish goals.

Even those whose name, integrity, and trustworthiness seem to be ironclad can be wrong, mistaken, deceived and can lead others astray much like a blind leading the blind. In medical school, I’ve often heard this well-known statement attributed to the father of evidence-based medicine Dr. David Sackett:

“Half of what you’ll learn in medical school will be shown to be either dead wrong or out of date within five years of your graduation; the trouble is that nobody can tell you which half–so the most important thing to learn is how to learn on your own.”

Dr. C.Sidney Burwell who was Dean of Harvard University’s Faculty of Medicine 1935- 1949 once addressed Harvard medical students with these words

“Half of what we are going to teach you is wrong, and half of it is right. Our problem is that we don’t know which half is which.” Harvard Medical School’s website at https://hms.harvard.edu/about-hms/facts-figures/past-deans-faculty-medicine

Both of these men realized our human limitations to being infallible, right, truthful and accurate. In my nearly two decades of practicing medicine I’ve seen the truth of their statements again and again. Estrogen and opioids, among many other examples, that physicians were routinely bombarded with news of their safety and benefits, and practically faulted and shamed for not prescribing to their patients( with medical “research” by certain groups and entities to justify their frequent use) turned up to be one of those “half of what we are going to teach you is wrong”. Estrogen taunted by scientific minds and clinicians as great for the heart caused enough heart attacks and strokes to strongly discourage its long term use, and opioids ( including prescription and illicit opioids) killed more than 399,000 people from 1999-2017 ( Scholl L, Seth P, Kariisa M, Wilson N, Baldwin G. Drug and Opioid-Involved Overdose Deaths – United States, 2013-2017. WR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. ePub: 21 December 2018). Someone got much richer with misinformation and deceptive words that misled physicians and patients alike.

Do you wonder what medical information and choices are currently being marketed to us by few entities as right, accurate , and truthful only to be shunned and discredited years later? The art and science of medicine is a blessing and saves many lives but scientific claims that are purposely driven by greed, half- truths, deception, alternative motives, and false information kills and destroys many lives including 399,000 young lives, and counting, who died from overdose.

Truly, deception steals your peace, kills, and destroys. I wonder, how many of us are buried under a load of lies, deception and faulty thinking about our value, worth, and significance? How many of us believe lies, half-truths, and deceiving thoughts about ourselves or others because someone that appears learned, smart, trustworthy, and nice said it.

Is what you heard yesterday, hearing today, and will hear tomorrow about you from others 100% true? Are those negative thoughts you and I have about ourselves, others, and about our future 100% true?

Friends, let’s be wise. Human words, thoughts and the evaluation of others (and our own negative thoughts and views of ourselves) are mostly subjective and can be based on wounded feelings, biases, prejudice, turbulent emotions, greed, lust, jealousy, anger, ambition or pride.

Put what you hear including new scientific claims under the microscope. We must be critical thinkers who take the mean and negative words and thoughts targeted at us by others, and those we inflict on others with a grain of salt.

A lie and a deceptive word can only hurt us and destroy our lives if we believe it and embrace it as the truth.

In this dark world of overflowing lies and deception, I’ve decided to seek and pursue the truth of God who declares me valuable, worthy, and significant. You and I are declared by God in the Bible as worthy of love, forgiveness, acceptance, and redemption. And that’s The Truth that we can fully embrace, find hope in, and that will bring light to every heart overburdened by the evil darkness of lies and deception.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

John 8:32 (NIV)

Views expressed here are only of the author, and do not represent the views of any other organization or entity. Information in this blog are not meant to be medical advice. Please see your medical provider or psychologist for any of your medical or psychological concerns.

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Diversity:  Beauty, Splendor, and Challenges

As I take my regular walks on a college campus, I can’t help but reflect on the splendor of diversity that surrounds me: varieties of plant species and trees; honey locusts, oaks, and maples, birds of all sorts, chipmunks, rabbits, brown and black squirrels, and one groundhog with a voracious appetite. And in the midst of it all, I see the wonder and beauty of creation in the rich diversity of colors, shapes, looks, languages, backgrounds, thoughts, ideas, and cultures of people like you and me.

For years, America has welcomed immigrants from various cultures, colors and ethnicities. And with the steady influx of immigrants, the nation is increasingly becoming diverse paving the way for new and exciting challenges.

Friend, as a naturalized, proud to be an American citizen with diverse multi ethnic, multicultural, and multilingual background here’s what my parents, and my own personal life journey taught me about diversity:

There is amazing beauty, uniqueness, and wonder found in the miraculous diversity of the universe, and in our planet earth’s created things; plants, sea creatures, animals, and wonderfully made mortals like us. We’re all special, valuable and uniquely created with different fingerprints, looks, colors, shapes, talents, and personalities.

 Never lose the wonder.

There is wisdom when diversity, including those of thoughts and opinions, are respected and not squashed. It is unhealthy pride and lack of caring that drive someone to belittle and disrespect others’ opinions, or to consider his or her own race, culture, heritage, ethnicity as superior to theirs.

Pride despises diversity.

In a diverse America, our various backgrounds, cultures, views, ideas, and experiences must work for ours and society’s common good.  Diversity, when encountered by love in your heart and mine, will enrich and bless our personal lives and unite our country.

Love accepts diversity.

Adel G. Hanna, M.D.

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“There are good people”

“But there are good people,” said Aretha, a highly educated African American female, as we began to talk about race relations.

“You’ve to prove yourself. Challenges exist…some have to overcome their biases…but there are good people”

She shared the frustration and need to repeatedly “prove” herself, and the challenge of changing the minds of those who are “good” but loaded with childhood and societal racial biases. Yet, she rejoiced in the truth that there are “good people”, whites and other races, who’re willing to grow and to abandon their biases and stereotypical racial beliefs.

Acknowledging the challenges and occasional frustrations she added, “It’s becoming a comfortable…a good environment” for such a change despite those who refuse to abandon their racial biases, and those who display a show of niceness and racial harmony outwardly but remain inwardly prejudice, racially intolerant, and unchanging.

Her words, reminded me of those of Solomon Northup in his fascinating 1853 memoir “Twelve Years a Slave”. Solomon Northup, a free man born in New York, was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery in Louisiana until a Canadian abolitionist helped secure his return to freedom in 1853.

He endured as a slave twelve years of cotton-picking, hard labor, whipping, and lashing into submission. Solomon was viewed by a brutal “Master Epps” as a property that’s more expensive than a mule, and an “animal worth a thousand dollars.”

“…the sounds of whipping were heard every day on Epps’ plantation, from sundown until lights out.”

  Yet, despite all what he endured from his cruel and sadistic masters, he was gracious to write in 1853 about William Ford, his first “master”, and “young Mistress McCoy”, who treated her slaves with gentleness and kindness, these words:

“In my opinion, there never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford. The influences and associations that had always surrounded him, blinded him to the inherent wrong at the bottom of the system of Slavery.^”

“I dwell with delight upon the description of this fair and gentle lady, not only because she inspired me with emotions of gratitude and admiration, but because I would have the reader understand that all slave –owners on Bayou Boeuf are not like Epps, or Tibeats, or Jim Burns. Occasionally can be found, rarely it may be, indeed, a good man like William Ford, or an angel of kindness like young Mistress McCoy.”

Truly, much like Solomon Northup who found nearly 175 years ago “good people” amidst the carnage of slavery, Aretha has also found “good people” today who’re willing to abandon their racial biases, to love, and to grow.

And friend, you and I are meant to be “good people” who choose to let go of our old racial stereotypes and biases. “Good people” who won’t subject others to repeatedly “prove” themselves. Instead, we are to treat others regardless of race, creed, and color with equality, love and respect, the way that we want to be treated.

 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Luke 6:31

Adel G. Hanna. M.D.

Author: Soldier To Soldier Heart to Heart

A Doctor’s Stories from a Military Camp

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Views expressed here are only of the author, and do not represent the views of any other organization or entity.

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“I love you.

Happy Valentine’s Day

My Beloved,”

GOD

“Happy Valentine’s,” said the small Hallmark card I found in my mail box at my first American undergraduate college.

Valentine? I had no idea who was Valentine.

Why would my dear Ghanaian mentor and   friend Kawbena, and his American girlfriend put a card in my mail box wishing me happiness in a day named after a guy called Valentine, I wondered.

“It’s an American thing about showing love to others,” explained my new-found friend Kawbena as he saw my puzzled look. The good man who came to America years before me, and his girlfriend, knew how it felt to be alone without family members and friends. Their Valentine’s card reminded me of my mom and dad’s love from miles and miles away across the ocean.

Many years later, the seeds of love planted in my life by Kawbena and his Christian friends led me into a source of love even greater than my parent’s love;

God’s Perfect Love.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has  to  do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

1 John 4:18 (NIV)

I will never forget the sudden, relentless fears that gripped the heart of my macho, and self-confident patient. A series of totally unexpected brushes with the law subjected him to legal punishments that agitated his sense of security and blanketed his life with paralyzing fears.

He learnt the hard way that laws are supposed to scare you from breaking them and will quickly bring terror and fear to your life if you ever break them.

Think about the last time lights and police sirens wailed behind your car as you sped up above the speed limit. Where you a little apprehensive, afraid, panicky?

Friend, we obey the law because we fear the punishing consequences of breaking it.

But God knows that it’s not our fear of punishment for breaking His perfect  law that would make us  love and obey Him. He’s fully in our pursuit to love us and not to punish us.

  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)

I pray that not just in Valentines’ Day but in all the days of our lives we’ll find God’s perfect love that’s freely offered to all. God’s love shows us what it means to be truly and genuinely loved.

 Love that liberates us from fears

Love that’s genuine and real in a world where it’s often just a word said from the mouth but not the heart.

 Love that brings us acceptance, value and forgiveness

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Friend, is that the kind of love you’re giving and experiencing:  God’s kind of love.

 “Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you,” God. 

Adel G Hanna, MD

Author:

Soldier to Soldier; Heart to Heart

A Doctor’s Stories from a Military Camp

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