The Doctor Said No And Heaven Did Not

He was very clear about it and she liked him for that. No hedging, no perhaps, no let us see how you go.

He said, in that small room with the poster about blood pressure on the wall, that at her age and with what she is on, she is not to go without food, and that if anybody suggests otherwise she is to tell them her doctor said no. He said it kindly and he said it twice.

She said all right. She meant it. She is not a woman who argues with sensible advice at seventy eight.

And then she went home and sat in her chair for a while with her coat still on, which is not like her.

Because here is what she had not expected. Somewhere in the drive back it arranged itself into a sentence, and the sentence was: another one gone. Another thing off the list. She has watched a good many things come off the list in the last decade, and most of them she has let go without much ceremony, and this one snagged.

Not because she wants to go without food. She would tell you plainly that she does not.

It is that there is something she has been asking God about for a long time, and people at that church talk about this as though it were the serious end of asking, and she has quietly understood that the serious end is now closed to her on account of being old.

If you have sat in a chair with your coat still on over something like that, come out here on the porch a while.

The doctor is right and that is the end of it

Let us take the practical part first and get it settled properly.

He is right. Do what he said. If anybody at that church suggests otherwise, tell them your doctor said no, and if they press it, tell them again and then change the subject, because you are seventy eight and you have earned the right to end a conversation.

You are not obliged to weigh anybody's spiritual suggestion against your own doctor. That is not this page being cautious. It is written that the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works (Psalm 145:9), and it is the Holy Spirit who put doctors in a world on purpose and has never once been on the far side of a sensible instruction.

And nothing on this site will ever ask you to go without food. Not a little, not once, not to see. That is the whole rule and there is no small print underneath it.

What God said about exactly this stretch of a life

There is a verse that speaks directly to these years, and it does something people do not expect.

And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.Isaiah 46:4

Count the verbs on His side. Made. Bear. Carry. Deliver. Four, and every one of them is His.

And notice that He raises the subject Himself. Nobody asked. God brings up old age unprompted and says what He will be doing then, and what He says He will be doing is the carrying.

There is nothing in that verse about what the person is contributing. Not one clause. The whole sentence is a description of a load being taken, at the exact stage of life when a body can do the least.

You are being carried, at seventy eight, by the One who says so in writing. I am not saying that to be gentle with an older woman: it is God's own sentence about the years you are in (Isaiah 46:4), and it is His Spirit, not this page, who makes it a floor under a chair rather than a card somebody sends.

And nothing has come off your list

Here is the part that arranged itself wrongly on the drive home.

Going without food was never the serious end of asking. It was never a rank, never a qualification, never a level that the able reach and others do not. So nothing has been taken from you, because there was nothing there of that kind to take.

You are not further back in anything, and there is no queue in this. Scripture says God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34), and it is His Spirit who makes that a fact about your own porch rather than a doctrine you have heard preached for sixty years.

And nobody here is going to offer you a reduced version to be going on with. That would agree with the whole idea that there is a fuller version somewhere you cannot reach, and there is not.

Now the same sentence this site says everywhere. Some folks must not go without food at all, and being one of them takes nothing away from them. Age, diabetes, medication, any hard road with eating, being frail or underweight or unwell, or simply not being sure: speak to your doctor and let what they say be the answer, and if the answer is no then it is no and nobody here is disappointed. You are not one step further from God because a doctor was clear with you. The word says the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works (Psalm 145:9), and the Holy Spirit has never once come in a smaller measure to a woman because of what her body can do.

And if today has more in it than a page can hold, if you are frightened for yourself, put this down and call somebody real: your doctor, a counselor, a crisis line, and the emergency services if you or anybody near you is in danger tonight. That is not going around God. That is help He put in this world on purpose.