Part 8: The Gift That Changes Everything

Two days after surgery

The gift of life.

Can you think of a more precious gift?

As we enter this Christmas season, that fact just keeps resonating within me.

The gift of life changes everything.

 Today marks one year since the transplant.  Those days right after surgery have now begun to run together in my mind, but as we enter the holiday season, I have found myself at times completely overwhelmed with thankfulness because everything has changed this Christmas at our house. 

                                                      

Welcoming Nana home

My mom was released from the hospital on December 5^{th (} 48 hours 

after surgery).  Most people don’t know or realize that the following day December 6^th was her birthday. She spent it recovering from giving the gift of life to my husband. 

And because of that our life has been changed.

  We ‘got our Christmas on’ early around here this year and most of my Christmas shopping is done. The gifts are wrapped and waiting to be received mostly by two little girls who simply cannot resist inspecting them each night to try to guess what each package holds for them. 

  As I watch them pick each one up, I know what it contains for them. I have chosen it, and bought it with them in mind.  I know it’s something that will bring them joy, but I wonder about some of the gifts waiting for them. 

Will they understand what it is?   

Will they want it? 

Will they receive it? 

Will they be disappointed?

 A gift doesn’t really serve it’s purpose unless it’s received. 

Going Home!

  As my mom recovered, we waited to see how her gift would be received.  One week later we got our answer. It seems, Ed’s body received the kidney so well that he was released from the hospital earlier than expected. I can still remember the surprised look on some of the nurses faces as they saw him being wheeled out of the hospital knowing that he was only one week out from surgery.

  They sent us home with meds that he was supposed to take for the rest of his life.  Mostly anti rejection meds and other pills that treat the side effects caused by taking those.  We were told before surgery to expect at least 60 pills a day, but it would vary depending on how well his body received the new kidney.  Most of the after surgery recovery has to do with getting all these meds regulated in the right combination and dosage.   

We came home with a pill box of 26 pills a day.  

 From what I understand that is pretty much unheard of, but he was receiving the kidney so well that they felt safe with that number.  Today he has graduated down to 11 pills a day- which includes only one anti rejection pill. The doctors that treat him have never had a transplant patient that takes this little medication. 

Mom’s gift has been received well.

  When Jesus came to earth as a baby, He came to an earth that he had created. He came to a people that existed because he had created them.  

He came to bring them the gift of life.  

 A gift that he had chosen and bought with them in mind.  A gift that would bring us joy. But it is up to us whether or not we receive this gift. 

Do we really understand what receiving this gift of life means?  

Do we even want it?   

Have you ever picked up this gift and inspected it wondering what it would mean to you only to lay it back down again unopened? 

Maybe this Christmas season it’s time to pick it back up again.   

  Go ahead... rip back that paper a little bit....take a peek at what’s inside.

I promise you won’t be disappointed....

                      because when you receive a gift of life it changes everything.

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1:17

^"The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" John 1:9-12

Christmas 2012

"Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift" II Cor. 9:15

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PART 7 - MONSTERS IN THE CLOSET

  It was about ten o’clock when I settled in for the night. After a long day, I was relieved that my husband and my mom were doing well and hopeful that this journey would soon be over.  I had not seen my girls all day. My sister-in-law had taken them to the “jumpy place” for the day (Thanks Aunt Da!!).  I was just getting ready to tuck them in and get some sweet little hugs and kisses when the hospital called.  

  It was a nurse from the ICU letting me know that there were some concerns with Ed. Although he was doing well, the kidney was not “producing” anything.  This couldn’t go on very long before they would need to take some action. 

  It was a kick in the gut when I least expected it.

Just when I finally felt like I could breathe again. 

I struggled to hold onto my peace. Father please help us…

  

  I hung up the phone, pushed down the concerns and went in to kiss my girls good night.  The room was dark, but I could see that Claire was already asleep. Ella was not.  I leaned in and noticed a worried look on her face.

  

 Sometimes a struggle with faith has less to do with feeling fears and more to do with the fears you are afraid to feel and deal with.  The ones you can’t even speak out loud.  The ones you keep locked up way down deep only to have them creep up in weak moments.

I had been keeping three locked way down deep. 

     I was afraid of losing my best friend. 

         I was afraid of not being able to support our girls alone.  

                But my biggest one was that our girls would lose their Daddy.

 It is not the first time they have lost a father. 

  Being adopted, they have already experienced this loss once in their young little lives. It is a thought that most people don’t usually consider when they think about adoption, but as an adoptive parent it is never far from my mind.    

  The first time I held Claire was one of the happiest moments of my life, but it was also mixed with the sense of overwhelming loss that she had already been through that had led to her being held in my arms. I remember the day we sat on the plane ready to leave her hometown. She was in a cute little red checked dress that I had bought for her and new red shoes that the orphanage had given her. I looked out the window and tried to blink back the tears realizing that as the plane took off, every tie she had with her birth family, her town, and her country would be gone.  

It is a loss every adoptee faces. 

I couldn’t bear the thought that being adopted into our family might lead them to another loss like that.  And so, I kept this fear pushed way down like a monster locked in a closet.

And that night, as I looked at Ella’s face, somehow I knew she had a monster too. 

“Ella, are you okay?”

“No Mommy, I’m not”  

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“My Daddy is sick. I’m afraid he’s gonna die and I won’t have a daddy anymore.”

She had said it.  

What I couldn’t even acknowledge.

That big, scary monster had just jumped out of the closet.

I couldn’t breathe.  Jesus help me…

And then out of the corner of my eye, I saw it.  I had packed it in the suitcase at the last minute. It was a new Bible we had been using with the girls. It had scriptures concerning different issues they might face marked.

Desperately, I grabbed it like it was my only hope at defeating this “monster”…

                 like it was my…

                                       sword.

  Together we read every scripture marked on fear and healing and trusting God. At the end of each verse, her face would light up with remarks like “I’m feeling better already” and “ I believe that’s true!” and “I know God will do that for my Daddy!” getting more and more excited with each verse until by the end she was jumping up and down on the bed.

I sat there in awe of what I was seeing-
                                       this amazing transformation from sadness to joy.

It was a monster-busting joy.

It was childlike faith.

I wanted it. I determined to walk in it.  Forgive me Lord…help my unbelief…

She took my hand to pray as we usually did when we finished reading, but this time she wanted to do it by herself. 

And then I sat and listened to my 6 year-old touch heaven. 
Yielding her sword, she spoke the Word that she had just read over her Daddy, with faith believing, that it was done.   
Then, she kissed me goodnight and went to sleep. 

No more monster.

^"Out of the mouth of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger." Psalm 8:2 (ESV)

  I was awakened the next morning by the phone. It was the nurse calling to inform me that somewhere in the night, an adjustment was made and the kidney was now “producing”.  Producing so much that Ed was well enough to move to a regular room but unable to because it required a full-time ICU nurse just to handle the “production”! 

No more monster.

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PART 6: LESSONS LEARNED IN THE WAITING ROOM

On December 3^rd, I sat in the waiting room at Duke Hospital. The transplant surgery had started early that morning and we were awaiting news of how things were going.  I knew we would hear news about my mom first and then it would be awhile before we knew about Ed. We had been given a vibrating pager, as if we were waiting for a table at a restaurant.  We were told when the pager lit up and vibrated; we were to go to the desk for the medical staff’s update. Until then we were just to sit and wait.

   

Worth the Wait!

Waiting has never been one of my finest abilities.  Some people seem to be really good at it.  My husband is one of them. I remember when we were adopting each of our girls.  The wait was long (fifteen months for Claire and two years for Ella).  Ed was perfectly content to look forward to the day and let things just unfold as they should.

 I was a wreck.

I had an almost constant twitch in my eye and indigestion. I couldn’t sleep or eat. 

The wait was excruciating for me. There were a lot of unknowns but I knew in the end we would have a child no matter how long it took to get there or what it might be like when we did.  The wait was more than worth it.

But this wait was different.

The waiting room was filled with people.  I am an avid people watcher.  As I sat there, I couldn’t help but notice the faces of so many and wonder what there stories were and who they were waiting for.  I remember one lady in particular whose husband was in surgery as well. She had gotten word that things weren’t going well. 

There is nothing like the mixture of grief, worry, fear, hopefulness, and prayers that are found in a hospital waiting room.

It is almost palatable.

People clinging to their pager willing it to vibrate …..

                                                                   but afraid of what they might hear when it does.

It’s in the waiting that faith is really put to the test.     

And as I sat there…

I have never been so thankful for friends and family who sat with us for hours so we wouldn’t wait alone.

I have never been so thankful for the prayers of the saint who were covering us that day.

I have never been so thankful for a peace that passes all understanding and guards my heart and mind in Him.

           

If there is one thing I have learned in the waiting rooms of life, is that waiting is all about what we allow our minds to do. In the waiting, we tend to want to fix our minds on what we are waiting for –good or bad. Most of the time when we do that it only produces things like worry, anxiety, discontentment, fear... But the key is to fix our minds the One who sits right beside us in the waiting room.  He is who keeps us at peace.

 ³ You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Isaiah 26:3 (NLT)

Knowing that He is there…

Makes me thankful that I am never waiting alone

Makes me thankful that he has covered this day in His blood

Makes me thankful that as I set my mind on Him and His Words my mind I wait in perfect peace…even as I watch my own pager light up and vibrate.

At the beeper alert, I think my body jumped up and was half way to front desk before my mind had a chance to catch up, my dad following closely behind me.  Mom was out of surgery and doing well. We were able to see her and she was awake and talking – her first words being “How’s Ed?” in her usual unselfish manner.  Aside from some normal swelling she looked well. 

Ed would follow a few hours later.  There were some difficulties finding a place for the new kidney because of his existing kidneys being so large but they eventually found a way and the new kidney (we call her “Agnes”) began to function immediately.  He was placed in ICU which was normal procedure but he was awake and talking coherently …well, as coherently as possible on a morphine drip! 

 The next 24 hours would be crucial for both of their recoveries, so my dad and I were sent home to let them get some rest and get a little rest ourselves…peace had guarded me through that day but holding on to it through that first night would prove to be difficult.

“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you.”

Isaiah 54:10

 “[If you preserve sound judgment & discernment]...You can go to bed without fear; you will lie down and sleep soundly. You need not be afraid of sudden disaster or the destruction that comes upon the wicked, for the Lord is your security. He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap.” Proverbs 3:24 - 26

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PART 5 - FINDING GOD IN THE DETAILS

Mongolian Wedding Tapestry

  Sometimes God is in the details.  That’s a saying I’ve heard all my life. Details are important.  I have a beautiful tapestry I bought on a mission’s trip in Mongolia. The tapestry itself, as a whole, is pretty, but not really something I would have bought for my home.  What sold me were the details.  It’s an antique tapestry traditionally made for a newly wed couple.  Each stitch in this 4 foot by 6 foot work of art has been hand stitched, the colors carefully chosen. The intricate design planned with a specific meaning. I was captivated by the purpose behind those amazing details and I had to have one.  It’s a treasure that I don’t plan on parting with.  

 When you or someone you love needs healing and healing doesn’t come right away, it’s easy to begin to think maybe God has forgotten you.  When we first started on this journey, we just believed for a miracle healing to take place in Ed’s body.  That was it.  I hoped every time he had a doctor’s appointment that they would just suddenly be unable to find anything wrong - miraculously healed- overnight. 

That’s what I wanted. 

 It seemed like the best way, to me. for God to be glorified in this situation.  But also, if I’m honest, maybe I thought it was the easiest way to get through this quickly without it interrupting or changing our lives in any significant way.  Maybe it would have lifted our faith a little, but we really wouldn’t have learned anything more than we already knew about God - we already knew he was a miracle healing God.  We’ve seen Him do it countless times.

  We began to realize that God was weaving our tapestry in different way than we would have chosen.  We needed Him to hand stitch the details of our life with a purpose that only He could create —miraculously.

  Now that we were moving towards transplant, one BIG detail was how we would manage to keep pastoring our church and give Ed time to recover.  We were in a good season at our church after coming through a difficult one.  God was doing some amazing things, but the ministry required all of both of us at that time.  It was an exciting time but an exhausting time as well and coupled with Ed’s illness only made it more exhausting for him.  He was tired.  We both were. And taking a break for surgery and recovery just didn’t seem possible. 

  It was in the middle of this detail dilemma that we got another phone call. The call came from a church on the Outer Banks of North Carolina – my hometown, They asked us to pray about and consider moving there where Ed would become the Family Life pastor.  We had received calls like this before. Actually during the difficult season I mentioned earlier, we had received three. We said no to all of them because we did not feel God was releasing us at that time.

            But this one was different…..

                                               and that caught us by surprise,

   

  As we prayed about it, we realized that God was in this and He was working out this detail in a way that only He could, This was an opportunity to do all the things we love about ministry without some of the administrative duties that we don’t love!  It was a chance to live a slower paced “beach life”.  More importantly we saw the need for this ministry and we felt God burdening our hearts to do it. 

We said yes.

Moving Day

  In the summer of 2012, we said goodbye to our church family. We loaded the moving truck and made the fifteen hour drive to our new home at The Ark Int’l Church in Nags Head, North Carolina,  We settled into a cute little beach cottage that the church had lovingly prepared for us.   

Sitting here,  over a year later, I am amazed at all the details God put into place for us. 

    - What church would actually hire a new staff member who was sick and   

       needed to take a break immediately after getting here? Yet this church 

       family welcomed us, loved us, and taken care of us through the most 

       difficult time we’ve ever faced. 

    - He placed us near my family where we could have their support.  My mom 

      and dad actually only live a few blocks away from us. My brother and his 

      family decided to move home too and their jobs were provided so quickly 

      that they actually moved before we did. For the first time in 20 years, we 

      all live near each other and it’s been so comforting to have them close by.

  

    - He placed us near Duke Hospital which is rated third in the nation for 

      kidney disease treatments.  They have been amazing and provided Ed 

      with exceptional medical care.

 God was weaving our tapestry with intricate details and with each new detail came a newer stronger level of faith. In a few months time this would all be finished and we could hang it up, see God’s handiwork, and return to our normal life or so I thought…

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PART 4 - A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN

  It was a typical Sunday afternoon, when the phone rang.  It was my parents.  There was nothing unusual about that. Since they lived in North Carolina, it was our habit to talk on Sunday afternoon and catch up.  This time however, it was just my mom, and I could tell she had something pressing to tell me.  “I want to be tested to see if I am a match for Ed’s kidney.”

  The fact my mom wanted to do this really didn’t surprise me. She is the most selfless person I know.  She’s the kind of person that would give away anything she has to some one, family or not, and she does so with a humble, quiet spirit.  She loves to serve and has a true servant’s heart and I love that about her.  But to be honest, I didn’t want her to do it.  The thought of having my husband and my mom on the operating table at the same time was just more than I could handle.  I would rather it be me. I could tell though, by the tone of her voice she had made up her mind and there was no changing it, so I agreed.  I knew there such a slim chance of her being a close enough match anyway that this door would probably close, but I loved her for wanting to make such a sacrifice.

  A few weeks later, I received the results of my antigen test. I matched 3 out of 6 antigens! Remember, there was only a 50 percent chance of this happening if I was his blood relative and a 1 in 100,000 chance of this happening as a non blood relative.   He now affectionately refers to me as “Sis”! (I know that’s kinda creepy, right?)  But here’s where it gets good.  The following week my moms test came back as well.  She also matched 3 out of 6 antigens!!

Only God!

  To say that our nephrologist was left speechless was an understatement.  He had never seen this before.  It was decided on the doctors recommendation, that my mom should be the first to donate. She would be out of the age range for donation if another transplant was needed in the future A transplanted kidney can last on average 10 years, sometimes longer, sometimes less.  That way mine would be available in the future if needed. 

  I had still had a lot of anxiety about having my mom and my husband on that operating table but little by little God was whittling down my fears and replacing them with faith.

A faith was bigger than I had ever walked out before.  A faith that required me to relinquish my grip and let go of all the “what ifs”… and just trust…no matter what.

The next few months would hold a lot more unknowns but it was clear that God wasn’t finished yet.

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PART 3: WHEN OPPOSITES ATTRACT

Our Wedding Day - 1992 (hence, the puffy sleeves!)

  The goal was always to transplant before dialysis was needed because once a patient starts dialysis it can cause more complications after transplant.  A lot of people do not have a choice but to go on dialysis due to not receiving a donor in time.  While Ed’s kidney function percentage remained low, and the deciding number that leads to the need for dialysis remained steady which was baffling to doctors.  But at the urging of our nephrologists, as Ed’s kidney function numbers began to decline, we began to prepare for transplant. 

  There are several factors involved in this, the first one being blood type.  After being tested we discovered that Ed’s blood type is AB positive.  It is one of the rarest blood types (only 3.4% have this type) and actually in this instance worked in his favor.  One factor of its rarity is that it actual means he is a “universal recipient” – meaning he has the unique ability to receive a kidney from any blood type. This was fantastic news because it meant that he would actually be moved up on the transplant waiting list from years to months (about three to be exact).    In the words of the doctor “If you have to be a transplant patient then you are the blood type everyone wants to be”. This fact made transplant before dialysis possible but it didn’t necessarily bring the success rate of the transplant up.  The doctor informed us that while this was great news, a live donor, if we could possibly find a match, would be the best. 

  In finding a good match for a kidney transplant they look at a lot of factors,  but the main indicator after blood type(which was already covered) is finding matching antigens (sort of the like the DNA that makes up your blood type, there are thousands of combinations). Blood relatives usually have a better chance of being the closest match. A good sibling match can have 3 out of 6 matching antigens.  There is only a 50 percent chance that siblings will meet that criteria.  However, because of the fact that all of Ed’s immediate family also carries this disease except one who was disqualified due to other medical issue’s a blood relative match just wasn’t available.   

  Naturally as his wife, I was the first one to be tested for a possible match (just as a side note: my blood type is 0 negative which actually makes me a universal donor who “just happens” to married to a universal recipient …opposites attract!!) 

  When I met my husband I was 19 years old, he was 23.  Most of my life, I knew that God had a call to ministry on my life.  As I grew older, that scared me to death. When I finally went to Bible College a year after graduating high school, I went determined to get my degree and get back home. I had no intentions of meeting anyone, especially someone that would be a pastor.  When I met Ed, it was by “accident”.  We were complete opposites.   

 I like spicy foods, he didn’t.  

  I love the outdoors, especially the beach, he doesn’t. 

 He likes sports, I don’t.  

  He had lived in the same state, same town, and pretty much the same house all his life.  I had lived in 4 states, several cities, and never lived on the same house for more than 5 years.  

 But there was something about “us” that we couldn’t shake.  We had a great time together and I fell in love with his heart. All the normal attractions that cause two people to fall in love were there, but we both will admit that it always felt like there was more to our “us” than just us.  It felt like we needed to be together for a purpose. 

 At the risk of sounding completely stereotypical, it felt like a “God thing”.

   Two months after we met for the first time, we were engaged and 8 months after that we were married and starting life together in ministry.  It has not always been easy and we have had to work at being compatible.  But no matter how difficult, that “purpose”, has kept us, and through the years (21yrs now) our differences have actually proven to be our strengths. 

  We had to laugh that day as we sat at the clinic and discovered our opposite blood types actually would work together because only God could take two people living in two different states and bring them together and despite their opposite personalities, cause them to fall in love, marry, and work together in ministry for 21 years.  

 He planned “us” with a purpose even down to our blood type. 

  We waited for the results of the antigen testing to come back praying it would match enough for transplant. For a non-blood relative those chances are 1 in 100,000. Sometimes God just does things that are really neat and this had already been one of those times, but what was about to unfold in the next few weeks was more amazing than we could ever have imagined…

^“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us…”Ephesians 3:20 (ESV)

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PART 2 - THE BEST LAID PLANS....

  We chose in the beginning not to share much about Ed’s illness with many people and we never shared all of the details of what we had been told to expect as the disease progressed because we needed to live as normally as possible for our church and for our family.  We told our church family the name of the disease and that a transplant would eventually be needed but that we were believing for healing.  In most instances, a PKD patient in renal failure will need to stop working at a certain point. Their energy levels just won’t hold up and stress only multiplies the symptoms.  As a pastor, of a small congregation, we didn’t have a staff to cover all of the responsibilities he carried.  Ed was determined to keep up.  Many nights he would come home and go straight to bed or fall asleep in his chair. Most of the time, when he was at home, he was asleep and he invested his waking hours into his responsibilities at church.  We knew that we couldn’t live this way forever, but we were still praying and believing for God to miraculously heal Ed and take this disease away.

That was our plan, we were waiting on God.

Plans make us feel safe.  We were created according to God’s plan.  Plans are good.  Plans allow us to live to our full potential and get more accomplished.  I like plans.  The problem is that I like to be the planner. It’s a problem that has plagued we humans from the get go. In the Garden, there was a plan in place. God’s plan for Adam and Eve gave them everything they needed to live to their full potential.   

    There were clear boundaries.... 

               They knew who they were in Him. 

               They knew they belonged to Him. 

                       And they knew what their part in the plan was.   

The problem came when Eve forgot all this and decided to make a plan of her own.  Eve made her own plans when the enemy tempted her to doubt the goodness of God’s plans for her.

 

  Sometime when life suddenly seems to spin out of control, it’s tempting to forget all about the good plans the Planner has already laid out for us. The boundaries that were once so clear can become so blurred when we forget who we are in Him, who we belong to, and what our part in His plan is. 

  When your spouse or someone you love is sick.  You feel the need to be strong for them. It’s not something you think about. You just do it.  You pull double duty when you need to and do everything you can to ease their burden so they can focus on getting well.   

     You stay strong for them

                            –for your kids

                                   – for the people who are depending on you    

But taking on this role can lead to some pretty blurry boundary lines if you’re not careful.   

   As we began to learn more about PKD, we began to discover some ways that we could try to keep Ed off dialysis and prolong the need for transplant for a period of time.  One way was a very difficult balancing act of a diet that limited certain foods completely while including some in small increments never to be combined with some others. To say it was complicated was an understatement and to a busy mom and pastor’s wife who thought she had climbed Mt. Everest by just getting a homemade dinner on the table that everyone would eat, it was overwhelming.  Knowing that what I gave my husband to eat could literally kill him (as if my cooking couldn’t before all this!) was a lot of pressure and I have never worked well under pressure.   

So to avoid feeling pressured, I controlled ....

                              –I became the Food Nazi. 

 My ideas of what he should be eating were my offering of forbidden fruit, so to speak, MY plan to make him well. 

   Sounds really unspiritual, and not just a little bit crazy to read these admitted “tactics”  as I type them here, but I was in survival mode – I had a good life, a good plan, and I needed to do everything I could to keep it in place.  In the end, none of my own tactics worked not only that, they led to frustration, more anxiety, and stress.  Eventually it became clear that God had his own plan in mind …and the best laid plans happen when we lay ours down and embrace His.

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PART 1 –LIFE INTERRUPTED

 

Our Family the year Ed was diagnosed with PKD

  Panic.  It’s the first emotion I remember feeling that day as I sat in the clinic and listened to medical professionals tell us about our “new life”.  I’d never experienced a panic attack before but that day I was sure I was coming close to one.  My first instinct was to run, so as I consciously tried to slow my breathing and steady my rapidly beating heart. I gripped the seat white-knuckled as if I were about to experience the biggest roller coaster ride of my life…because I was….

  It had only been a few weeks since we had heard the diagnosis. After a seemingly routine round of tests, our doctor, who attended our church, had instructed Ed following a Wednesday night service to go straight to the ER.  His kidney function was dangerously low and more tests were needed. The ER was the best place to get those done quickly.  I remember him distinctly instructing Ed not to go home and wait until morning because he could go into renal failure while he was sleeping, Those words would later haunt me more than one night as I laid awake checking his breathing to make sure he was alright.  But for now the shock of it all made it seem so surreal.  We were in a good place in our lives.  After 10 years as children’s pastors, we had planted and pastored a healthy growing church for the last 9 years.  After struggling with infertility, we had started a family and now had two little girls. We were busy, and life was crazy at times, but we were content and enjoying life.  In the hospital, Ed was assigned several specialist who ran more tests and concluded that he had a disease called Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD)  a disease in which cysts form on the kidneys.  It seems that the disease affects different people at varying levels and for Ed, it was more serious.  The cysts had multiplied to the degree that there was very little kidney mass left and the kidneys, filled with cysts, now weighed in at about 20lbs.  After a few days, they sent him home assigned to a nephrologist.  We went right back to life as usual those few weeks after and it all seemed like a temporary interruption,

  But in that moment, at the clinic, reality was quickly setting in. As I sat there, I scanned the room surrounded by people who seemed way sicker than my husband. It was evident that we were the newbies in this new club. There was a sweet older woman; her skin was yellowed with illness.  She was the mother of seven grown children, none of which were a match for her kidney.  There was a middle aged man who had been through transplant only to have complications that almost killed him. He was now on dialysis awaiting a new kidney from an unknown donor since he had no family.  There was a young father in dialysis as well struggling to keep working to provide for his young family…the pain, the sadness, and the worry in that room was palatable.  I sat feeling helpless.  These were the kind of people, I had prayed with, believed God for healing for, visited in the hospital. I had seen God heal and do absolute miracles in people just like these…I knew God could instantly heal my husband and yet, as I sat there, I found myself pleading desperately with God because I realized my biggest fear was that maybe He wouldn’t.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9

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Who Do You Say That I Am?

 ¹⁵ He pressed them, "And how about you? Who do you say I am?" ¹⁶ Simon Peter said, "You're the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God."  ¹⁷ Jesus came back, "God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn't get that answer out of  books or from teachers. My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am. ¹⁸ And now I'm going to tell you who you are, really are…. Matthew 16:15-18 (MSG)

  God moments are not always those warm, fuzzy times when life comes full circle and you suddenly realize that God had your back the whole time.  Sometimes God moments come in the form of a big question mark.  A question you always thought you knew the answer to…..a question that shakes you to the core of all you thought you knew… A question that leads you on a journey…a journey of faith. 

    Faith that stretched more than you’ve ever knew it could.

    Faith that reveals a God who is who you’ve said He was …

                                       but bigger than you’ve ever really known Him to be. 

     Faith that shows you who you are, really are.

The last three years have been one such journey. 

Oh, there have been plenty of warm, fuzzy moments but there have also been question marks

–BIG ones. 

The answers- have sometimes come through pain and tears and frustration.

But always, confronting me with the raw, honest truth that reveals itself when what my mouth speaks and what my heart fears collide.     

            When suddenly who I say that He is,

                                   Who I think that I am, and

                                                 What I thought faith was

                                                                     is “called on the carpet”. 

  The following posts are a testimony of the last few years of our lives as my husband, Ed, battled a kidney disease (PKD) that eventually led to a kidney transplant, it’s a story of amazing miracles, and healing, but more than that, it’s a story of our journey of faith….

                                       PART 1 (Excerpt)

 

  Panic.  It’s the first emotion I remember feeling that day as I sat in the clinic and listened to medical professionals tell us about our “new life”.  I’d never experienced a panic attack before but that day I was sure I was coming close to one.  My first instinct was to run, so as I consciously tried to slow my breathing and steady my rapidly beating heart I gripped the seat white-knuckled as if I were about to experience the biggest roller coaster ride of my life…because I was….

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