Paul's Passing Thoughts

According to a legend and based on a now lost letter, Countess Chinchon, the wife of the viceroy of Peru, fell ill with malaria.  The governor of a neighboring province provided a remedy in the form of a certain tree bark.  The countess experienced a seemingly miraculous recovery, and word of the bark’s extraordinary powers quickly spread. The name of the countess henceforth became associated with the bark. Although misspelled, the genus of that tree Cinchona, is in her honor.

The tree is native to the Andes Mountains, and four species have been cultivated in tropical areas and in Africa for hundreds of years. The bark possesses various alkaloids, and the most significant is quinine, used to treat malaria.

Consider the idiom “a bitter pill to swallow.”  The bark of the cinchona tree was used to fight malaria, but the quinine in it was extremely bitter. Widely employed in the era before coated medicine, cinchona pellets caused any disagreeable thing to be termed “a bitter pill to swallow.” Now you know the story of that idiomatic expression.

If you had to swallow medicine, although extremely bitter, that would shorten the effects of a deadly disease, you would do it. To choke on it, spit it out, or refuse to swallow it would not allow the medicine to do its work.  I remember when I was pregnant with Timothy the doctor prescribed liquid iron supplements. The smell was outrageous, and the taste was abominable. Every morning I would wrap a towel around me, lean over the kitchen sink, pinch my nose, and put the spoonful of ferrous sulfate in my mouth. I had to force myself to swallow it. Even though holding that awful stuff in my mouth was lengthening the experience, I had to will myself to swallow.  I would make all manner of alien gagging sounds while downing large glasses of water to get the taste out of my mouth. Needless to say, when pregnant with Ben and Philip, I asked for iron supplements in pill form not the liquid. Those iron pills were huge, and did leave a horrible aftertaste, but were far more tolerable than the liquid.  However, whether pills or liquid, I needed to swallow the medicine to get the healthy effect the doctor wanted, and my body needed.

All of us have experienced unpleasant events, disappointments, humiliations that are difficult to endure, or something hard to accept that we can share.  We may even label them “bitter pills.”  What are our choices? Either endure the event, accept what was hard, change the expectations, get over the humiliation or continue in anger, bitterness, jealousy, and anxiety. The positive choices are biblical, and the negative ones we are commanded to put off, set aside, or cast on the Lord.

Although the Bible does not use the phrase “bitter pill to swallow”, there are words and phrases that are synonymous, such as trials, temptations, or cross to bear. In light of these synonyms what are the choices given to us in God’s Word? Count it all joy when given “bitter pills” to swallow. I Corinthians 10:13 tells us that God is faithful to give us only  “bitter pills” that we can bear to swallow. Jesus said to take up your “bitter pills” and follow me.

So, when everyday life prescribes you a bitter pill to swallow, count it all joy. He promises blessings and spiritual wellbeing when you do.

Susan