Who Do You Trust?

This year is coming to an end, the mail box fills up with all kind of mail, Christmas cards from dear friends, special offers from your favorite stores and also … official notices from your health insurance to let you know that they are increasing the rates in the new year. Is that the kind of good news we expect around this time of the year? How do we deal with such letters, that declare in the new year you have to pay more!

We received one of those letters from the health insurance as well. To me health insurance is a very sensitive subject. Not just because health is a sensitive matter indeed but it is even more to me because both my parents worked for that particular health insurance all their lives and even I worked there for more than a decade. Plus they paid all the bills of doctors, treatments and hospitals that turned into mile stones for us as a family: a major vein surgery I had, the first scan of each of our children, complications during the pregnancies, delivery of our babies, a nose surgery that enabled my husband to sleep through the night, etc.

It's quite comforting to know that a health insurance gives you the assurance to pay all theses horrendous bills. But is not that exactly the point?

As a mother I want the best for my children, also the best health care. But best according to what? According to ratings of big magazines, according to reviews of customers or the experience of my own family (including myself) while working there?

What lies underneath my concern? Is it a worry or even a fear? Do I fear not to get the best doctor, the best treatment? Do I equal „best“ to loads of money for the bills? God had chosen David to be king of Israel. Would you trust a shepherd boy to run a whole country?!

Looking closer at this situation of mine I do understand that the crucial matter is my thinking. Over a decade I worked for that health insurance and learned all the right arguments why a customer should stay with this particular insurance, all the disadvantages a change might bring, etc. So, every time my husband raised the subject of health insurance in general and change of health insurance in particular, „my tape“ was playing until I decided to stop it. I stopped, paused and considered.

Discussing it soberly with my husband, praying about it and applying common sense helped us to find and agree to a solution.

Somehow fear had made me stop thinking at all. All I heard was „my tape“ playing all the time. Focusing on „my tape“ or what I fear can block out God's plans and purposes for my life. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). The antidote to fear is truth. Only when I paused and considered could I think soberly.

Luke 12: 4-7
„And I say unto you my friends, be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell, yea, I say unto you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?“

So, as this is year is coming to an end, let the good news be the good news in our heads and hearts – Jesus Christ came into this world to save us. God is the Creator of the heavens and of he earth. He also made man, us, and therefore knows us. May that be our assurance and our comfort. Let Jesus Christ be the helmet of our salvation, the one who girts us with truth and the rock upon whom we build our lives to His glory. Amen.

Andrea Kioulachoglou