The Surgeon's Hands You Cannot Feel

In 1846, William T.G. Morton demonstrated the use of ether anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital in what became known as the Ether Dome. For the first time in surgical history, a patient lay still and painless while a surgeon removed a tumor from his jaw. The watching physicians were stunned. One reportedly whispered, "This is no humbug."

Here is what strikes me about that moment. The patient, a man named Edward Abbott, had to surrender consciousness entirely. He could not watch the surgeon's hands. He could not monitor the procedure. He could not verify that each cut was precise and purposeful. He had to fall into a kind of voluntary darkness and trust that when he woke, the thing that was killing him would be gone.

Faith works like this. We are asked to lie down on the table before a God whose hands we cannot see, whose methods we often cannot understand, and whose timeline we would never choose. The tumor of sin, of grief, of brokenness — we cannot remove it ourselves. We have tried. Every one of us has tried.

And so faith is not a feeling of certainty. Faith is the decision to go under, to let the Great Physician do what only He can do, even when we cannot stay awake to supervise.

When you wake, the wound will be there. But the thing that was destroying you will not.

Trust the Surgeon's hands.