Thursday, March 10, 2016

practicing medicine








Before I made medical history almost 4 years ago with open heart surgery, combined with a staph infection and my aorta disintegrating, I used to spend a lot of time in hospitals as a chaplain.  I even took some time to go through a class, where the head chaplain told me “why are you here, you get it,” and explained if I came on staff, as a volunteer, I had to obey the rules, but if I just came on my own, I could do as God led me.  Ever the rebel, and still, I liked his idea, and used it effectively in many hospitals over the years.  I saw the dead or near dead come to life, I saw two men who were given less than 5% chance to live, both recover, one still fathering children, the other playing a piano concerto for the nurses before leaving the hospital.  Through encouraging others, I saw them share and counsel with others, one particular couple who had to make the decision to take their son off life support.  When she prayed with them, they decided to wait, and later that day he sat up.  I saw him the next day, eating in bed.....maybe patience is a virtue.  I know it is a fruit of the spirit.  One morning in a hospital ICU we saw a young girl in a coma.  Holding her hand, we joked with her, and you could see the heart monitor jump as she listened.  The next thing we knew she was trying to pull out her tube so she could speak, awake and full of joy.  Scripture, and Reader’s Digest tells us laughter is the bet medicine, we got to prove it.  But the hardest part was getting past the doctors in our leathers, we looked suspicious, but when her aunt recognized me, all was well. 
Last Sunday would have been Laiken’s 21st birthday.  A precious little girl she went to heaven at age 13, like a daughter to me, I have bragging rights on her sweet heart.  But even sick, she had a sense of humor.  One afternoon I dropped in to visit at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, a short 125 miles away.  She was in a clean room, and we put our hands up on the glass.  Then she waved me in, and not knowing any better in I went.  Until Nurse Judy saw me, and raised the roof-I wasn’t allowed in, only family, and no one in leather.  For sterile purposes, and as Judy read me the riot act, quietly for we were in the hospital, Laiken was laughing out loud on the joke she pulled on me.  A precious little girl, who the last time I saw alive, was throwing up in a huge yellow bucket, but when saw me looked up and smiled that Laiken smile, and waved.  She died of an infection, the leukemia couldn’t take her.  And we wonder who is really blessed when we minister.
But one afternoon while visiting Shirl Girl, she was about to go into surgery, and we were praying with her.  Along with the doctors and nurses.  She was on oxygen, and having a hard time breathing, and as I leaned over to pray with her, she kept gasping for breath, and and alarm went off.  After the third time, she grabbed me by the shirt, and drug me down to her face level.  “You’re standing on my oxygen line!”  And we all laughed, for I hadn’t noticed her lifeline of air under my feet. 
But now I cannot, for I am not allowed to visit hospitals any more, for I am ripe for infection still.  And even after spending 30 days in one, 20 days in Cardiac Critical Care, I miss the ministering in them.  But doctor’s orders prevail, as I never want me or my family to endure what I/we ever did again.  But not all hospital visits end on a happy note.  Not all patients go home, some die there.  But God in his infinite wisdom has heaven for those who chose Jesus, and they will never die, but live forever.  I have been there and I cannot wait to go back.  But until then I must be patient, a patient of earth, until God’s final healing, death takes me home.  Jesus tells us of the place, and if it wasn’t so would have told us.  But as much as I desire heaven, and I do, we must be patient as he is, if I had died before being saved, hell would have been my final destination.  But God is patient that none should perish, so maybe we need to be too.  For truly our lives are not our own, and he holds them in the balance.  We have no control over the day we were born, and we don’t over the day we will die.  But we have a lot to say about how we live in between, and I am glad I chose life in Jesus.  And for his loyalty to never leaving me, despite my circumstances.  We can choose the promise of heaven, or choose the promise of hell, what do you choose?
I have been on life support, in cardiac care, but my whole life in Christ has been his support of my life.  When my aorta was rebuilt, and my heart out of my body for 5 1/2 hours, you can do a transplant in 4, I know that Jesus held my heart in his hands. If you could see a handprint on it, it would have his nail pierced hand print on it.  So when I hear how he holds our lives in his hands, my take is more personal.  When I hear how he changes hearts, mine is physical and spiritual.  When I hear how he gives life, I have mine.  And when I hear how life is worth the living just because he lives, I know first hand.  For he is the great physician, all others just practice it.  Jesus saves...but why aren’t we all healed?
Maybe Laiken’s example tells it best.  She walked with God, and when they would return to her room, she was home.  Her earthly home, a hospital room.  But on one of her walks, Jesus told her “let’s go to my house, it’s closer, it’s time.”  And he took her home.  No more tears, no more cancer, no more infection.  Healed and home at last.  When God heals it is forever, so don’t discount heaven, or God taking us there.  Man plans, God laughs, but still loves us, laughing with us, not at us.  It is that personal, and if anyone could return, the words to describe heaven would probably be like mine, “I want to go back.”  And in God’s timing I will, but for now I am a patient, sometimes man on earth.  Waiting for the day when I change addresses for good.
Trust Jesus with your life, let him make something out of it.  The short time here on earth is nothing compared to eternity.  Laiken knows, and so do so many others.  Somewhere over the rainbow, there is no place like home.  It is called heaven.....be it ever so humble.
love with compassion,
Mike
matthew25biker.blogspot.com