Counting Backward into Darkness

In 1846, a printer named Edward Abbott lay on an operating table at Massachusetts General Hospital, breathing in ether fumes administered by dentist William T.G. Morton. Surgeons and skeptics packed the gallery of what would become known as the Ether Dome. Abbott had a tumor on his neck that needed removing, and he had agreed to something no surgical patient had ever done in a public demonstration — he voluntarily surrendered consciousness to a man holding a glass inhaler.

When Abbott drifted off, surgeon John Collins Warren cut into his neck. Abbott did not flinch. When he awoke, he spoke the words that changed medicine forever: "I felt no pain."

Every person who has undergone general anesthesia since that day has repeated Abbott's act of trust. You lie on a table. A voice asks you to count backward from ten. Somewhere around seven, you hand over everything — your awareness, your reflexes, your ability to protect yourself. You cannot watch what happens next. You cannot intervene. You simply trust that skilled hands will do what they promised while you are utterly vulnerable.

This is the kind of trust Scripture invites us to place in God. Not a cautious, eyes-open, one-hand-on-the-steering-wheel trust, but the willingness to release control entirely. "In peace I will lie down and sleep," the psalmist writes, "for You alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety" (Psalm 4:8).

Sometimes faith means counting backward into darkness, believing that the Healer's hands are already at work.