If you are a facebook friend or a follower of my blog you know that I have struggled over the last several months with extremely serious heart problems. These problems culminated in triple-bypass surgery, a defibrillator implanted in my chest and a stent following a minor heart attack in January. Needless to say, life has been "interesting." I have become accustomed to my own mortality and resigned to the fact that the rest of my days would be a struggle with pain and fatigue.
But it turns out that I was wrong.
Yesterday I was given some of the best news I've had since my wife said "yes" all those years ago. My heart function has improved to the point that it is now considered normal. I am not considered to be suffering from congestive heart failure at this time. How did this happen? We could talk about my commitment to exercise and a better diet or the medicines doing their job or any number of factors. But I believe the real answer came from something that was not said in the clinic yesterday....The Nurse Practitioner pointed to the sky and said "It means that there's a purpose for you to still be here..." She was completely right.
I recently performed a funeral for a man four years younger than myself. He dropped dead from a heart attack. No warning, no symptoms. He was here one moment and gone the very next. That situation was hard on me....knowing that there was no reason why that shouldn't have been me. But God has a purpose for keeping me here.
God has a purpose...That's an interesting thought. So much of life seems random and meaningless. The images coming from Japan shake us with their scope and starkness. Can there be any purpose in such devastation? I have quite a bit of experience with devastation, especially on an emotional level and I want to tell you that there is a purpose in it, and that good can and does come from it. As a Christian I believe that God is using all of the events in my life to mold my character into a better reflection of Him. People talk all the time about wanting to die well....I want to live well. I want people to look back at my life and be able to clearly see a love and devotion to God that filled and directed every decision, every action, every word and thought. I figure that will insure dying well.
God has granted me a healing that I never asked for and never thought I would receive. I am grateful beyond words, but I hope that the life I've lived over the last few months was a witness enough of God's power to sustain us even when life isn't what we'd hoped or bargained for.
Perhaps someday I'll understand God's purpose for this season of my life...not that it really matters if I do or not. What matters is that I use this season in a way that brings glory to Him. That's the only purpose that really matters.
Showing posts with label life and death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life and death. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Reflections on Life....and Death
The e-mail was heartbreaking. The cancer was spreading and they are now talking about months, not years. My friend and his wife had decided to forgo some treatments while continuing others. Their emphasis had shifted from "quantity" of life to "quality" of life. I respect their decision, it's one that I would make. My prayers and hopes go with them.
I've been thinking during the last two days about the whole "quantity" versus "quality" thing....The sad thing in all of our lives is that we've been playing out that debate at all. We pick and choose between so many things that in the end nothing gets either quality or quantity time. When did we lose the wonder and the joy of life? Now our lives are filled with things that are, quite frankly, not important....The tyranny of the urgent rules our lives with an iron fist, and the urgent is seldom important. The TV, the internet, baseball, soccer, whatever, these things have taken us away from the things that are most important. God, family, and friends are all cast aside for the sake of chasing whatever happens to have captured our attention at the moment. My oldest daughter (who struggles with serious health issues of her own) jokes that those types of things are "shiny" and they cannot be ignored.
But that's exactly what we need to do: ignore them. It's time that we quit worrying about the quantity of the things that fill our lives and begin to focus on the quality of our lives. Things like family, friends and God deserve more than the scraps of our time. We'd be better off without most of that other stuff anyway. But doing that will require discipline and discomfort and we don't like either one of those concepts. As a child, and even through college, I could accurately be described as being carefree, happy go lucky. At heart I'm still that way, but somewhere along the way I crowded my life with so many less important things that I lost that part of myself. I've decided that I don't like my life in its current configuration and have spent the last few years sorting through and cleaning out my life, bringing it down to those things that matter most. I'd like to think that its made me a better husband, father, and friend.
It's sad, really, that so many of us have to face a serious tragedy or situation to begin to consider these things. My wish for my friend is that he would be healed, but my greater wish for him is that God would grant him genuine peace and joy, regardless of how many days he may or may not have left.
I've been thinking during the last two days about the whole "quantity" versus "quality" thing....The sad thing in all of our lives is that we've been playing out that debate at all. We pick and choose between so many things that in the end nothing gets either quality or quantity time. When did we lose the wonder and the joy of life? Now our lives are filled with things that are, quite frankly, not important....The tyranny of the urgent rules our lives with an iron fist, and the urgent is seldom important. The TV, the internet, baseball, soccer, whatever, these things have taken us away from the things that are most important. God, family, and friends are all cast aside for the sake of chasing whatever happens to have captured our attention at the moment. My oldest daughter (who struggles with serious health issues of her own) jokes that those types of things are "shiny" and they cannot be ignored.
But that's exactly what we need to do: ignore them. It's time that we quit worrying about the quantity of the things that fill our lives and begin to focus on the quality of our lives. Things like family, friends and God deserve more than the scraps of our time. We'd be better off without most of that other stuff anyway. But doing that will require discipline and discomfort and we don't like either one of those concepts. As a child, and even through college, I could accurately be described as being carefree, happy go lucky. At heart I'm still that way, but somewhere along the way I crowded my life with so many less important things that I lost that part of myself. I've decided that I don't like my life in its current configuration and have spent the last few years sorting through and cleaning out my life, bringing it down to those things that matter most. I'd like to think that its made me a better husband, father, and friend.
It's sad, really, that so many of us have to face a serious tragedy or situation to begin to consider these things. My wish for my friend is that he would be healed, but my greater wish for him is that God would grant him genuine peace and joy, regardless of how many days he may or may not have left.
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