I have mentioned before how discouraging it is to announce a surgery, pregnancy, job loss, etc. and have some well meaning, but clueless, friend tell a horror story about the knee that never healed, 72 hour labor, or person that never again found a decent job, but an overly optimistic response is also discouraging. The happy stories of the miraculously fast recovery, two contraction delivery, or job that made someone a millionaire, are equally hard to hear. One of the kind couples who brought food in after my surgery, told me about a friend who was back at her office job two weeks after a double knee replacement. Well, good for her! I, on the other hand, still got tired from eating. Overly optimistic outcomes make you feel like you must be doing something wrong, like you are not trying hard enough.
In my case, I had the same surgery with the same surgeon at the same hospital, and same rehab exercises, with two entirely different outcomes. The right knee was more stable, less bruised and swollen at two weeks than the left knee was at four months. The plan of God is not a one-size-fits-all formula. He has different outcomes for similar situations for purposes known only to Him. That is one of the reasons I find health breakthroughs so annoying. Even Christians get caught up in the health fads. If Facebook and Dr. Oz had been around during Israel's wilderness wanderings, they would have been touting the health benefits of the wood that purified the water at Marah. The healing power was not in the wood, it was in the purpose and power of God for that specific incident.
So when I respond to someone's news like that mentioned above, I'm going to aim for realistic, middle ground encouragement. Even encouragement can be too much of a good thing.
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