Broken emotional hearts can be healed…but so can our physical hearts.

No one should dread getting an email or Facebook message and faint while reading it. So I’ve cut my weekly devotionals down. I’ve been pretty good in my limited communication.

However…

Today’s personal story with two take-aways, needs extra words.

My knee replacement was scheduled for April 5, 2023. I steeled myself for the event… had the walker ready… knew I could get it around our home. But at dinner time the night before, just hours from my early morning surgery, it was cancelled. “We don’t like your EKG” was their story. Two doctors on two separate occasions had told me that my EKG showed that I should not need to fear any surgery.

No further explanation was given, and I developed a frustrated attitude while limping around on my two bad knees… until two months ago someone told me to get an Echocardiogram. I immediately did this, believing it would give me a good heart report and quickly back on two repaired legs.

However,  when we met with the cardiologist, he informed Joanie and me that I had Severe Aortic Stenosis and would need my aortic valve replaced ASASP. He then shared that if the knee surgery had commenced when it had been scheduled, and I had been put under… I would not have survived!

My first take-away: It’s always safe to trust God, His heart, His love and in this case His divine timing.  (Joanie hasn’t been a widow for the last sixteen months and I’m very glad for her, and for me!)

My second take-away came a week ago this Thursday as I was being wheeled down the hallway toward the operating room. (The valve replacement was a TAVR operation. Look it up… it’s astounding.) I obviously had been studying the aortic valve since my diagnosis and found out that this elderly and calcified aortic valve (about the size of a quarter) had started beating in its incredibly small and quickly maturing heart, since my 8^th or 9^th week as a  festus. Now the interesting part. This ailing valve had soldiered on for over 81 years, almost 80 years before making a fuss, struggling but valiantly carrying on its duty!

It has beaten consistently over 3 billions times. It beat with never a vacation or break every four hours.  So I silently said to God, “Father, I’m not here to grouse about a sub-par organ that has failed. I stand before you with pure wonderment and the incredible way You put my entire body together!”

Confess with me the following:  “I AM FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE, AND I KNOW IT.” Psalm 139:14

P.S. Been home since the next morning and recovering quickly.