Off to the hospital in a few hours for tests to prep me for Friday's surgery, this time to have four holes bored into me in a laparoscopic cholicystectomy—terribly expensive medico-babble to remove my ailing gall bladder.Dreading yet another round of needles and stitches, fasting, and sleep deprivation (the nurses' specialty, oh how they excel at it). It's the second in this year's medical drama, and, please God, the last.
The Coach has of late been working 18-hour days, juggling his job and my hospital preps and funding, but—bless him—he still takes time to soothe my fears. When we got wind this morning of the staggering costs that would again dent our budget, he was, in his words, "not worried, but..." And he paused, the mobile phone connection clear enough to relay his sigh, "...I am shaken." Then he gathered himself, becoming the tender warrior that he is, and said, "This is not a problem, Jan. As long as we're together, we're okay."
He sleeps now, bone-tired, and perhaps will only be a bit refreshed when he rises in just a few hours to put in some work before he brings me to the hospital.
Poor dear. How can I tell him I am not prepared for tomorrow when he himself has gone through as much emotional turmoil as I have? He will quote to me one of his favorite psalms, "Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me." He will remind me of the Lord's faithfulness in all the good and bad years we've been together—twenty-one!—and tick off the many things we are grateful for, and then he will hug me, make me laugh and think of all the junk food and trans fats I can finally have in my post-op diet.
Tonight I choose to meditate on Paul's words to young Timothy, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." The argument is easy to follow: The Lord loves me more than I can ever comprehend, He who knitted me carefully in my mother's womb; His Will for me is perfect, acceptable and pleasing; He is mighty to save; how He desires me to fare on Friday is all part of His purpose for me. There is no room for fear for perfect love—His, and what He shows through The Coach—casts out fear.
Thank you, Coach, for being the Lord's strongest tangible reminder of His love.
5 comments:
just wanted to share this with you, mum, from thomas merton's autobiography:
Yes, and from the secret places of His Essence, God began to fill my soul with grace in those days, grace that sprung from deep within me, I could not know how or where. But yet I would be able, after not so many months, to realize what was there, in the peace and the strength that were growing in me through my constant immersion in this tremendous, unending cycle of prayer, ever renewing its vitality, its inexhaustible, sweet energies, from hour to hour, from season to season in its returning round. And I, drawn into that atmosphere, into that deep, vast universal movement of vitalizing prayer, which is Christ praying in men to His Father, could not help but begin at last to live, and to know that I was alive. And my heart could not help but cry out within me: 'I will sing to the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. Let my speech be acceptable to Him: but I will take delight in the Lord.'
hi, ninang.
am keeping you in my prayers, fully trusting that you are in the best of hands.
we (me and my tapeworms) love you!
hope we can see you again real soon. will bring bags and bags of junk food and maybe a couple of token healthy items. hee.
you're a beautiful couple. remember...this too shall pass...you're in our thoughts and in our prayers
to the coach's wife:
you genuinely depict a woman of utter faith. hats off to you... disembarking from this ship of mild admiration, i'd just like to ask something really drifting.... uhm, where do you go to church, ma'am?
Thanks, Paul, Sands and Echu! :) You are wonderful.
Anon, the Coach and I attend Greenhills Christian Fellowship. :)
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