Where do I even begin?

Well, settle in, this might be a little longer of an update as it's been such a long time since the last one and there is so much to say.   I want to talk about the physical recovery, some of the challenges and of course, all we have to be thankful for.  So many of you have been asking about an update and I am thankful for your interest and patience as you waited. 

So let me start with an update on the physical healing side of things.  Things are going well.  I feel good and am significantly stronger than I was.  I feel that strength returning a little more each day.  Though I still have some discomfort in the sternum, depending on what I'm doing, it feels pretty good.  The incision looks good.  One spot has been slower to heal that the rest but even that is almost completely scarred over now.  Another encouraging sign is my blood work is almost completely back to normal.  All the numbers except 3 have returned to normal and even those have been improving and are just slightly outside of normal.  All of which, according to my latest doctors visit, is completely expected at this point.  Today is the day that I get my first "release" to do certain activities.  I now get to drive a vehicle again, start some more formal exercise and maybe even shoot some hoops.  So, all in all, I'm doing well and really feeling the progress.  I'll have one more appointment locally on December 14, which will hopefully give me more freedom.  Then the big day will be January 5th, when we return to Cleveland Clinic to see my surgeon and Lord willing get my full release to return to work.  Pray with us about that day, please.

Not unexpectedly, this type surgery has a way of bringing a person face to face with your own mortality and the brevity of life.  I suppose that it would do the same for anyone.... if it doesn't maybe it should.  This has especially been true in light of a couple facts.  First of all, as I have learned more about the seriousness and extent of the surgery.  I've read the doctors surgical notes, talked with others who have had open heart and read a lot of information.  Many people have valve surgery, fewer people have valve surgery and aorta root replacement.  The latter is much more extensive.  I intentionally ignored this fact before surgery but have not done so since.  The second fact is that approximately 4 weeks after my surgery, someone I had begun to develop a friendship with over the last 6 months or so, had open heart surgery at a hospital locally.  She died from complications.  I thank God that she is with Him today and is experiencing only great joy and the ultimate love of her Savior but that is still a heavy fact.  Knowing that God chose that for her but not for me is just a reminder that He is the decider.  Six weeks ago today, I was laying on an operating table with my chest spread open, my heart was stopped and machines kept my flesh "alive".  That's an incredible thought, isn't it?  That for a handful of hours, my heart didn't beat and my organs were shutting down as if to die.  Yet, here is the amazing and powerful beauty of it all... although those things were all true, God was, and is, the decider on when my soul leaves my body.  You see, when we think of life and death, we think about our physical body.  We think that when our physical body stops functioning we die, and in one sense, that is true.  But what many fail to recognize is that no one dies for real until God decides it's time.  Hebrews 9:27 says, "It is appointed unto man once to die and after this comes the judgment".   Until God takes our soul from our flesh, we are alive and will remain so until He decides otherwise.  No man decides.  When my heart wasn't beating, I wasn't breathing on my own and my organs were ceasing function, God knew all along, what his plans were.  I didn't.  I remember praying before I walked out the door of our home on October 9th, to travel to Cleveland.  I was the last one out the door and remained alone a few minutes extra to walk around the house.  With a heavy heart, I asked God to let me come home. I prayed that those moments weren't the last ones I'd be there in our home.  Why? Because I was afraid of death? Because I didn't want to see my savior?  No, of course not.  And if God had chosen that to be my day, then I would have experienced the privilege and joy of seeing my God and Savior.  I wanted to come home for the same reasons all of you would.  Because God gave me this life and the family and relationships I have and I love them.  I celebrate them.  I experience joy in them.  There's no shame in that.... on the contrary I think maybe there might be shame if I didn't feel that way.  I want to be the best husband to my wife and father to my children that I can, for God's glory, until the day that He takes me to eternity.  I will treasure each moment of that and look forward to having years more as long as God allows. As I suspect you would too. God is so good.  I thank Him for having brought me through and brought me home. 

Let me share an honest struggle with you for a moment.  I have put off posting an update until now because, in part, I didn't know what to say to all of you. I wanted to tell you how wonderful everything was going but, to be honest, I was struggling with some things.  Though God was doing great things and He was as faithful as ever, I was struggling with things not going as "perfectly" as I had expected.  I was feeling pretty good most days but then would doubt my progress when I would have pain I didn't expect, when I would see a part of the incision that wasn't healing as I expected, when I would read a test report and draw conclusions or when I would google why my blood work results were looking as they were.  Let me tell you, don't do that.  Don't google that stuff.  As I had mentioned in the post I wrote on the day I was discharged from the hospital, I underestimated that challenges that would come after surgery and during the recovery.  I prepared well for the challenges before but not for after.  As a result I struggled with questions, doubts, worries and at times even a little fear.  I thought, "Would God let me come this far and come home just die now?".  Yeah, messed up line of thinking, I know.  Then God did what God does.  He taught me.  Through an unexpected source, God brought Romans 8:28-29 to me.  It reads, "For God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.  For those whom he foreknew, these he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His son".  I'm so familiar with that verse and yet I wasn't listening to it's teaching.  You see, those verses teach that God brings things into your life and causes those things, whether good things or bad things, to work towards your good.  That good isn't what you or I decide we want as "good".  The good is that those things are used to make us more and more like His son, Jesus Christ.  Since the beginning of all of this God has been using this experience to make me, my wife, my kids and even others, more like Jesus Christ.  But, for some reason, I wasn't letting that sink in after the surgery.  God was trying to use all the experiences and struggles I was having, to make me more like Jesus but I wasn't seeing it that way.  I was just seeing them as struggles and dwelling on the "pain" and difficulty of going through them.  Since being reminded of this, it has transformed the way I'm looking at this whole process.  It has helped me to see the after surgery recovery more like I saw the before surgery preparation. God is so good.

As I said early, today, Thanksgiving Day, marks 6 weeks since surgery!  That really puts a special flavor into Thanksgiving for our family.  We have so much to be thankful for every year, but this year it seems more real.  We are thankful to be alive, thankful for God's faithfulness, thankful for God's grace, thankful for God's sovereignty, thankful for Gods strength, thankful for God's love, for God's compassion, for God's teaching, for God's protection, for God's provision, for God's mercy, for God's forgiveness, for God's great deeds and for the the security of salvation in Jesus Christ.  That doesn't scratch the surface of all of what we thank God for.  In addition, we are thankful for each other, for our family, for our church family, for our friends and for what God has done in each of us through this experience.  God is so good... God is just so good!

We love and appreciate all of you so much.  Thank you for your love and concern for me and for all of us as we have traveled this road.  Thank you so much for the ways you have all ministered to us through all of this.  God is good to give us people like you in our lives. 

I'll try to give you another update after my next appointment on December 14th!