Minor Surgery – Grateful (Day 5 – 1:48pm)

This is wes©. I am doing quite well this morning. I think the worst is over and I am fast on the road to recovery. I won’t post the details of my difficulties now, I am just grateful to be on the other side. Thank you for your prayers and thoughts. I am particularly thankful for the Word. Many of you carried me through with great and simple expressions and reminders of what God has told us in the Bible.

I think sometimes we forget that the Bible was given to us for us and for a purpose. To remind us who God is, what He can do, what He has done and how we can make it through this life He created. Too often the Bible becomes a book we look at during a Bible Study or in the church service, and at that time, we feel inspired and really taken by the truth we discover or are lead to. But when *real life* hits, we quickly, and usually unintentionally, abandon the Word and begin solving our issues with human convention. The Bible is living and active, sharper than a double-edged sword. It pierces deep, even to dividing soul and spirit. It judges our attitudes and heart. Perhaps that is why we shy away from it. The truth and power it wields is intimidating. It might expose something that we don’t want to have exposed. It might make us aware that in fact, we are the problem in a particular situation, not the person we are blaming. So to avoid having to face shame or apologize or see truth, we avoid the penetrating eyes of scripture, quite content to have it shared from a pulpit where it probably won’t get too specific for us, as we are just a single listener among many and there is no real accountability to follow through. I don’t know, but here is what I can tell you…

My Confession

This trip to the hospital was one that clearly God had planned for sometime. Of course I had my plans too. This would be easy, I’d only miss a day of work, I’d be back up and at it in no time. But in the middle of my plans, God said, “Now wait a moment, I have some plans here too. I don’t recall you checking your plans with me.” Now God did not come out right and say that, He did it in His usual ‘climb in the window on the second floor instead of knocking politely on the front door’ sort of way. He is so good at knowing the best way to get our attention and do what is best for us. He is the master at using the unconventional to bring our attention to the smallest yet most pertinent detail for our good. That’s what He did this weekend.

I was suffering and going through new treatments that seemed like designed torture methods and losing sleep and thinking that this was not the plan. I even tried to alert you in my quick post before the major suffering came, by typing that this was not what I had in mind. I recall telling Karen that this time through I thought God’s Spirit might have left me, I could make it through and endure, but it felt like it was more on my power than the way it used to be, with me depending on Him. Then the real trials came. The inability to take in enough oxygen, the excess liquids crushing my heart, lungs and surgery site. The procedure to try (4 times) to get a tube in my nose and to my stomach, which I was sure they were doing wrong and my brain was going to get pierced. The fear and loss of mind control from a possible overdose of narcotics to start all the previous off, etc. Clearly I was not in control of this weekend procedure. It was after I had been through the worst and was still trying to recover and get my bearings. It was after I had lay for hours pondering what had happened while soulfully feeling every hard swallow due to the hard plastic in my nose and throat. It was after I finally conceded and gave the victory to God and muttered in my soul “I give up” even though I did not even know what I was giving up or that I had been resisting, it was after all that, that God spoke to me through His Word. Some one had sent an email with a simple message and scripture.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  2 Corinthians 2:9

(Thank you Betty for your perfect timing and wisdom in scripture choice.)

This scripture is one I know well. It has been the centerpiece of many a fine sermon and mentioned plenty is Christendom as a great verse of encouragement. But I was not living it. I was not claiming it. I was not looking to be weakened so that Christ in me could be glorified. God had to kind of force that on me or sneak it in, so to speak. That reminds me of another scripture that tells me no plan of God’s can be thwarted, but that’s another sermon for another time. For me, I am grateful to my God who does not give up on me in spite of the slow learner that I am. I am grateful that He uses His Word and others to speak into my life. I am grateful that He brought you into my life to pray and remind me of His wise counsel found in His Word. I am grateful that in a dark time in my life, He once again used His Word, His Spirit and His people to change my life and perspective. It was Betty’s scripture that really caught my attention and that God probably intended me to see at this point in my life. But it was all your scripture, and songs that quoted scripture, and your words of encouragement based on scripture that ministered to me this whole time. Thank, thank you, thank you. I. Certainly don’t know the mind of God and cannot pretend to know it, so I have no clue what else He has for me concerning this recent hospital stay. But I will be sure to try to live in my weakness and wait for His power to come, which is made perfect in my weakness.

By the way, are you quoting scripture but letting it’s authentic, life-changing words by-pass your heart? Might I humbly recommend against it. Recall that I referenced Job 42:2?