“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)
For the last couple of months, I’ve been running some of my favorite columns that I had previously written for this newspaper. It has not been because I needed a vacation. I have been very sick.
In February of this year, I succumbed to the reality that I could not control my weight without some help. Over the last 10 years, I had ballooned to 320 pounds and felt as if I had no hope. I entered a weight loss surgery program and had a lap band installed around my stomach. Everything was fine until mid-May. By that time, I had lost almost 60 pounds and was on my way to my goal of 100 pounds. Unfortunately, however, trouble began to appear although I had no idea just how serious the trouble was.
I began to lose my energy – so much so that I had to terminate my daily visits to the gym. I simply did not have the energy to work the long hours I work and exercise. To add insult to the injury, weight loss normally brings comments about how great you look. But I didn’t look great. My color was terrible and co-workers in my office grew very concerned. Something was dreadfully wrong.
To make a long story short, I learned in early June while having my gall bladder removed that my lap band had literally eaten a hole in my stomach. I was riddled with infection. Emergency surgery removed the band and surgeons were able to patch the hole, but my body needed time to deal with the infection. I was in the hospital for 12 days, 10 of them with no food or water as doctors wanted to be sure the newly patched hole in my stomach sealed. The good news – in 10 days, I shed another 20 pounds. The bad news – major surgery took all the energy from my body and it was six weeks before I even felt like sitting in front of a computer and writing a column.
One of my doctors told me if two more weeks had passed, he doubted I would be around to tell this story. I don’t know how close I came to dying, but I do know I don’t want to come any closer than this experience brought me. I am grateful that God is not through with me and I look forward to the greater plan I believe he has for my life.
A friend once told me that nothing ever grows on the tops of mountains. Growth always comes in the valleys. And although this valley was deep and the journey through it seemed interminable at times, going through it has changed me in ways that simply would not have happened without it. For example, I will never look at a patient in a hospital the same way. Now that I have seen life through their eyes, I understand how much a visit from a caring friend means; even more important, I will never take bedside prayers for granted. I am convinced that I live today because of prayer, not medicine. Don’t get me wrong. I received excellent care and had some of the best doctors medicine had to offer. But it was prayer that brought me the strength to fight, and it was prayer that gave my wife the strength she needed to care for me when the doctors and nurses were not around.
I have also grown to understand the importance of get well cards. I cannot tell you the number of times I looked at them – low moments in the middle of the night, or when I was afraid I would never regain my strength. They made a real difference!
The point of all of this is that when God brings dark clouds our way, it will rain. But rain always brings growth. I don’t want to experience what I went through ever again, but I wouldn’t trade anything for the journey. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me.” (Psalm 23:4)
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