God in Adversity, Part 2

View from Room 7001

The Sunday before my Friday surgery I had the opportunity to be anointed with oil and prayed over by our pastors and other leaders and friends. Entering into this time I felt free to share the details of the surgery along with my fears. I had a single fusion over ten years ago but this upcoming double-fusion surgery was to be more than twice my previous surgery. This meant the pain I had experienced before would not only be present this time, but would be even more. Now I fully realize countless people, some of my friends and family included, have been through significantly tougher circumstances than mine, it’s just this, so far anyway, is my toughest medical challenge—so the fear of the pain, the length of recovery, and the loss of mobility were very consuming fears.  Not to mention the procedure itself—someone digging around inside my neck and spinal cord—was also quite disconcerting. 

After the anointing and prayer, I didn’t really feel any different. In fact, my body didn’t shudder and I wasn’t knocked off my feet (which would have been disastrous in my condition!).  But as the day wore on and I had quiet moments with nothing but my own thoughts and prayers, I sensed something profound deep in my soul—peace.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7, NKJV.)

I actually didn’t feel anxious or worried at all. In fact, I found myself looking forward to a further vision of being healed and feeling better than I’ve felt in probably a year. Yes, I knew there would be pain; yes, I knew there would be a relatively long recovery time; but I knew that by Summer I should be in full health and as soon as the surgery ended, I’d be out of danger of paralysis.  I also had a deepening sense of confidence in my surgeon, I knew God would be involved somehow and I also knew she was well-experienced and quite concerned about me. She would be bringing her “A-game” to the OR.

The day of the surgery Janey and I prayed before heading to the hospital; we both prayed that God would somehow be glorified through this and I specifically prayed for joy; yeah, crazy, huh? I prayed for joy. 

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23.)

A typical definition of joy is “a feeling of great pleasure or happiness” (New Oxford American Dictionary, 2^nd Edition eBook, 2008).  This definition is more of a worldly definition and very circumstance oriented; being happy is usually because some exterior circumstance is happy to you.  But surgery, for me anyway, is not a happy thing.

However, the Greek word for ‘joy’ in this passage is χαρα (chara), and according to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1990), it means ‘cheerfulness, calm, or gladness.’  Wow!  What a definition.  This is what I had in my soul, of all places and of all circumstances; I was cheerful, calm, and even glad. My blood pressure wasn’t elevated and my breathing was steady and normal.  No way would this be my natural state given the circumstances, it was a supernatural outpouring of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  And people gravitate to cheerfulness and God knows this. Was Jesus grumpy and morose?  Of course not.  In fact, He was a healer and he even prayed for the forgiveness of those nailing Him to the cross. That is certainly not the picture of a sourpuss Savior.   

Does this sound like a grumpy Jesus to you:

“I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd.” (Jesus, John 10:10b-11a.)  

Or how about this one:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  (Jesus, Matthew 11:28-30.)

There are several other examples of course, but the point is that along with my IV I was also receiving an infusion of Holy Spirit that spilled out in χαρα, joy.  Even after my surgery recovering in my room cheerfulness was just my norm.  When Ray, the czar of the bladder machine woke me up 3:30 AM, I was still cheerful. I was able to get know all the nursing staff, found out about their families, their lives, their dreams—it was awesome—and it wasn’t my natural man.

At one point, the cleaning lady popped into my room as I was playing worship music on my iPod and that got us talking about Jesus.  In fact, I was able to have spiritual conversations with at least half the staff.  Again, that’s just not my old-man nature, that was the Holy Spirit at work. God was showing me that yes, indeed; He shows up even while you’re lying in the hospital bed and having to use a walker to get to the bathroom! But His concern was beyond me, He also wanted to touch the hard-working nursing staff through His work in me. Whether they recognized it or not, God was blessing them for their commitment to caring for humanity created in His image. 

And when I would wake up in the wee hours because of the pain, I’d look out my 7^th floor window and see the lighted Capital Building.  That brought happy memories and reminded to just pray in the Spirit to again be awash in the warmth of His love for me.

Plus God kept me energized by all the visitors coming by.  Close to 30 people stopped in to say ‘hi’ and see how I was doing.  What’s more, I can’t describe it well, but I could sense that so many people were praying for me. More than once I was brought to tears of joy in that hospital bed because of God’s work in the situation and all the people showing love and concern for me.  Tears are welling up in my eyes right now as I write this.  God, the Author of the universe, cares that much about a single life. And He cares that much for you:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.  He who believes in Him is not condemned.”  (Jesus, John 3:16-18a, emphasis mine.)

This is my testimony of this experience. God moved mightily to touch my life and many other lives as well. And He continues moving in the situation even now.  Yes, pain is a reality and recovery time is lengthy, but God transcends this with His washing of Holy Spirit infusion.  But this isn’t unique to me:

This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:3-5, ESV.)

God is calling us to salvation in Jesus. And lest you wonder how to be saved, how to enter into this incredible relationship with our Heavenly Father, I share the answer of Paul and Silas to the cry of the Roman jailer:

“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

And they said, “Believe in the name of the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:30-31.)

God awaits.

God in Adversity

A week ago yesterday I had neck surgery.  I had a double fusion and bone spur removal.  My neurosurgeon said that when she opened me up and started to rummage around in my cervical region she discovered I was actually in worse shape than she had originally thought.  After surgery while I was in recovery, she told Janey that she didn’t know how I was able to continue functioning; much less functioning at the level I was at.  Janey knew the answer though, God. 

In fact, God has been present through this whole situation.  You see, I’ve already had one neck fusion way back in 2001, so when my neck started to hurt strangely again in mid-2011 I did not go see a doctor.  Why?  Because I sensed I would wind up in surgery again—I do not like neck surgery. So I figured I would try yoga, or different weight-lifting exercises, plus, I was optimistic that the pain would eventually go away.  It didn’t, it just got worse.

 Anyway, after my collapse at Lowe’s and rush to the emergency room (see my entry What Happened), the ER staff conducted several tests while I was unconscious to figure out what happened.  While they never figured out what caused my collapse, they did have images showing how seriously pinched my spinal cord was. 

Once my regular doctor and a neurosurgeon I’d never met before got a hold of the ER images, they started to pursue me via phone calls to “strongly encourage” me to get one more test because things didn’t look good. I finally relented and got another MRI. Within 24 hours they had the results which, among other things, showed “spinal cord deformity.” When I heard this phrase I started to get concerned myself.  Plus, the doctors’ phone calls started up again; I was being pursued even more intensely than before. 

I was beginning to grasp the seriousness of my condition; this was not a run-of-the-mill disk rupture.  When I finally saw the neurosurgeon, she showed me my MRI images. 

I gasped. 

I’ve had a lot of medical tests over the years (I have more than one genetic defect), and many of the test results have been less than desirable, but this result actually caused me to gasp:  my spinal cord was seriously pinched in two places by bulging disks on one side of my spine and bone spurs on the other side of my spine.  The pinching was so profound that if I had anymore even minor head or neck trauma, I could be paralyzed from my neck down for the rest of my life.

You’d gasp to.

As she went on to explain my options, surgery or increasing pain and increasing risk of paralysis, my soul did not start to spin in a spiral of discouragement like it would have a few years ago.  However, she continued with her explanation by telling me I needed to stop running, not just now, pre-surgery; but most likely for the rest of my life.

 

“But…but, you don’t understand,” I said, voice stammering.  “I love to run.”

“Your spine can’t take the pounding, especially with a triple-fusion,” she responded matter-of-factly.  Doctor’s are so good with that ‘this is no big deal so just suck it up’ tone of voice.

So now, in just 15 minutes I’m seeing the danger I’m in and I’m being told to give up one of my most favorite activities. Not only that, they had begun to set the surgery date for barely a week away.  Seriously?  Just the day before I was happily running on a mulch trail engrossed in prayer. Now I’m being told walking is all I can reasonable do and in a very short time I am going to have a very serious surgery.

All of the sudden I was not having a good day!

Discouragement, and worse, is now beginning to close in.  So I silently prayed for God to stave off the encroaching darkness and to give me the courage to face the reality before me.  Oh, I also needed strong doses of peace as well.   

And God did.  He did in big ways.  Yes, I had the surgery; and yes I may never run again, but the work God is doing in my heart and the way Jesus has showed himself to me through this is mind-blowing.  The Holy Spirit is daily comforting me and I’m excited to share this with you. 

…but that will be my next entry, so please stay tuned, God is being glorified even in what appears to be a deep adversity.  The God of Light is real, so please tune in again for my next entry.