After five days at home healing and dealing with some lingering infection issues in my abdomen, prompting a cat scan, some antibiotics and a warning from the surgeon, if the fever spikes go to the emergency room--that indeed is what happened. My fever spiked, June took me to the emergency room, Pastor Nelson from CCF came to stay with me, and the ER doctor diagnosed me with DVT--a blood clot in my right upper thigh. We are not keeping you here for whatever is going on in the abdomen but we are keeping you here for the DVT, the ER doctor said.
On Tuesday already I was experiencing pain in my upper thigh. As I recall a blood clot had crossed my mind as a possibility. But on Wednesday it was confirmed. And the focus suddenly changed.
This would be the ethos I would live in for the next number of weeks as events swirled and prognosis was uncertain. But if I already have a clot should I have surgery again on the abdominal stuff? Thursday morning I learned that not only I have a clot but a piece had already broken off and gone to my lung. Would more break off?
A break off clot in my lung and my DVT experience a decade before all meant I was in high risk group. The doctors were very serious. Heparin and then coumadin once again became my companions. When the coumadin takes effect indicates when I can go home. Established tried and settled way to deal with DVT. I remembered I had experienced it before.
But what about the original concern the lingering and mysterious abdominal infection? Would that get forgotten? Wy was my body suddenly falling apart?
I pressed in to the Lord: I need a word from you. I need a place to settle my faith. We really do not demand from God. We can't say, God this is what I want you to do for me. We can ask. And we listen and when he speaks we can pray that word in faith. We exist for God he does not exist for us.
The word came as I read the Psalms:
One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard:
...that you oh God are strong, and that you oh God are loving.
A word, you will be healed today would have been nice. But that as not what God spoke. Would I rise up in faith on what God chose to speak?
This pressed me to the core of my being much like I felt pressed to my bed as I woke from the surgery. This was spiritual surgery occurring. See, the most fervently and consistently I have prayed for anything in my life I have prayed for my father to be healed of cancer when I was 11. But he died. So it can be a struggle. Does God respond to prayer?
So here was the word: Glenn, as you lie here in the hospital, not healing as you expected from a familiar surgery but wondering what is going on health wise, whether your whole health is collapsing. Here is the word: I am strong. I am loving.
* Do I believe this?
* Will I exercise my faith on this?
* God will relate with me in strength and in love. He will not be unconcerned. The medical things that occur do not have God on the sidelines wringing his hands in despair.
* It was a "God I believe, help me in my unbelief" moment. I want to relate to you in this way. Give me grace so I can.
A simple word, a god chosen not a Glenn selected word. Simple to understand the words and meaning but one which took faith to receive. But my heart became steadfast as I realized: God created the world with his word. This is the same word speaking God. Yes, this God who creates and sustains the world can carry my life in a strong and loving way.
I kept resting in this word and kept placing my heart in this position. My prayers were as much not to give way to anxiety and dealing on a natural plane as it was for the actual power of God to bring physical healing to my body.
The word of God and the Spirit of God were recreating my heart and mind and bringing them into a wholeness and alignment with God's heart. In that I could rest even though I did not understand what it was--it is called trusting.
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