The Giver of Great Gifts

“Our Lord Jesus differs from all other teachers;  they reach the ear, but He instructs the heart; they deal with the outward letter, but he imparts an inward taste for the truth, by which we perceive its savour and spirit... Had it not been for the love of Jesus we should have remained to this moment in utter ignorance, for without His gracious opening of our understanding, we could no more attained to spiritual knowledge than an infant can climb the Pyramids, or an ostrich fly up to the stars... Let us sit at the feet of Jesus, and by earnest prayer call in His blessed aid that our dull wits may grow brighter, and our feeble understandings may receive heavenly things.”

-- C.H. Spurgeon

I sit at the close of a ferociously busy day with these words written down by Spurgeon and cast onto a page that is forever dated January 19th in his devotional Morning and Evening. How easy it is to think we have attained something, earned our keep in life, or merely just accomplished the day’s tasks by our own good standing. Today has been a continual reminder that I can do none of those things apart from the good will of God above and the grace of Jesus Christ. 

I was the last of my family to casually roll out of bed at 4:45 this morning-- they had all beaten me up anywhere between the hours of 3:30 (props to you Mom and Dad!) and 4:30. Mom, Jared, Drew and Abbey piled into the car just before 5 and zipped off to the hospital just down the street; Jared made it barely in time to be admitted at 5am. He waited in the prep room until about 7am, and then was whisked off to the OR. Stories haven’t surfaced from these hours just yet, but be certain that leaving Jared in a room for two hours waiting for what everyone else would call a nerve-wracking surgery must have provided the hospital staff with some solid, free entertainment!

Next, we waited. I sat in meetings concerning the history, development, and usability of the Ohio Achievement Assessment (despite what you might think, at least the first 5 hours were interesting), Dad traipsed across Findlay, Ohio calling on offices for business, and Mom, Drew and Abbey truly just waited. Just before noon we received the good news that the tumor had been removed without any spreading! Praise be to God! Then, around two, we received word that the replacements had been made in Jared’s leg and that he would be heading to recovery shortly thereafter. 

Then, Jared waited. He was in what he calls “the dungeon” for four long hours. Jared found himself available to pray for another woman beside him in this dark and cold recovery room-- a woman who expressed being in sever pain. Praise be to God, he even blesses us with opportunities to share His love at moments like these. How far superior is His love for our soul than that of our circumstances! 

While in “the dungeon” the doctors gave Jared an epidural to diminish the pain he would experience in his leg upon waking. Apparently it was not working immediately because, just as they were about ready to move Jared to his room, they ran through their checklist again, only to stop when Jared rated his pain at about a 7 out of 10. If you know Jared, you know that this really means that his pain was more along the lines of a 12 out of 10, he just doesn't have a normal pain rating scale. Honestly, he ran 10 miles and hiked at Red River Gorge on the tumor in his knee for months! 

Finally, having made it out of recover and to his room, he was bombarded with family and nurses to take care of him. His new nurse, Melissa, did a great job dishing back to Jared all of his outlandish, drugged-up comments. Mom, at least, was thankful to have her around when Jared, with great frustration, realized just how many IVs, cords, and other various tubes he was hooked up to. You can see in the picture below some of the cords as well as the stitches (black line) and wrapping going up his leg to enclose the incision (more pictures from the ultrasound and xray to come showing what the replacement actually looks like inside his leg).

Dad and I finally joined the crowd in the hospital in time for dinner. Jared is sharing a room with another patient at the James, so our visit there was short, in hopes of not disturbing his neighbor or violating hospital rules of three visitors at a time for an unwarranted amount of time. I was around long enough to recognize that Jared is doing better than I could have ever expected. I went into this day with the thought in the back of my mind that the doctors could open his leg and find cancer spread everywhere. They could have had trouble with bleeding in surgery and the cancer could have spread then. Jared could have even woken up without a leg at all if things had gone along the lines of the worst case scenario. However, thus far, God has permitted us the blessing of learning of His glory by hearing good news. We thank Him for his grace and praise him for such astounding gifts! We will know next week, when the pathology reports come back, exactly how much of the cancer has been killed off and what his next rounds of chemo need to look like. At this point, we are just basking in good news and great promises from the Lord! 

As I began my post with a few thoughts from Spurgeon, these things have been revolving around in my mind all day. Surely, we could not even raise our voice in praise or bend our knees in prayer or process these circumstances in this way if it was not for the preliminary and preeminent work of Christ. Nothing that happened the way we prayed for it to today happened as a result of a work completed by anyone in my family. We prayed that Jared’s surgery would go well. It did, through the talents and gifts given to our surgeon by God. We prayed that the cancer would be removed from Jared’s body. Again, God used Jared’s surgeon to accomplish this. I am thankful to be offered the beginning of another year of life on God’s earth, but, just as I did nothing 24 years ago to make this possible, I do nothing to sustain the outcome of that desire now. “...Without his gracious opening of our understanding, we could no more attained to spiritual knowledge than an infant can climb the Pyramids.” God is love; God is grace. To him be the praise forever and ever amen!