The Peace of God

If you read my last blog entry you know that the biggest thing on my mind right now is Stephen's surgery.


When Paul had open-heart surgery in 2000 Rick and I approached the whole thing with different attitudes, mainly because we had different visualizations of what was going to happen there. Rick's thought processes went something like "they're going to operate on his heart and he'll be all better" while my brain was saying "First they'll paralyze him and put a tube down his throat and hook it up to a machine to breathe for him. Then they're going to cut through his sternum and spread his ribcage open, then they're going to put him on a machine to pump his blood and stop his heart. Then they will cut his heart open and try to rebuild from scratch valves that don't really exist and after they do that they will try to repair holes in his heart. Once that's all done they'll shock his heart into beating again and restore the blood circulation so that his heart is pumping it again. Then they'll check to make sure that none of the sutures are leaking and once they feel like things are working then they'll insert giant tubes into his pericardial cavity to drain excess fluid and blood, wire his sternum shut and close his skin. After that they'll bring him out to the ICU where the machine will continue to breathe for him while he wakes up. He'll have a line in his artery monitoring his blood pressure and a line into his heart monitoring his heart pressures and those things will be taken away gradually once he's stable." Are you getting the picture here of how I envision surgery compared to how Rick (and everyone else in our family)does????

So...on to Stephen. While Rick is thinking "they're going to operate on his back and he'll be all better" my brain is going "First they'll paralyze him and put a tube down his throat....".

Right now the verse I'm clinging to is from Philippians, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

This isn't the first time I've clung to that verse and the last time it was my lifeline something in particular really struck me about it. The words "with thanksgiving". I found that when I start to thank the Lord for all the things I have to be thankful for my anxiety level goes down and the peace of God really does seem to descend on me. So....here goes my thank you list:

I thank you Lord for....
Texas Children's Hospital and the doctor's and nurses who care for my son
Dr. Weinberg
The fact that Rick has a job that provides good insurance
That Stephen's back injury is treatable
That Stephen is otherwise healthy
Family and friends who pray
People who will listen to me rant and rave
The assurance that You are always in control
The school district's working with us so Stephen can keep up in school
Hannah Lechmann and the fact that she's going to help with Paul

The list could and does go on and on.....Thank you Lord, I'm starting to feel some of that peace!!!