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Scary Journey

Oh what a crazy 11 days this has been! I'm an emotional train wreck. I don't even have the energy to fully re-cap the events of the last 11 days. I'll just say this: Dad had a small heart attack on the 9th, went by ambulance to the Zeeland ER, found out everything going on and was transferred on the 10th to the Meijer Heart Center, spent 7 days in the hospital waiting for his turn to have open heart surgery, had a quadruple bypass on the 16th, and is now in the very slowly progressing and highly painful recovery process. Wow. Even that mini recap wore me out.

As I was preparing to spend all day Friday at the hospital for his surgery, one of the things I did was look up a bunch of Bible verses on fear and comfort. There is one that really jumped out at me. It was Zephaniah 3:17 ~ The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.  It brings an image to mind of a Mom rocking her crying newborn to sleep as she cuddles the baby and sings a soothing song. That's what I want to have happen right now. I need my Abba Father to scoop me up in His arms, and quiet me with a loving song. Just when I think I'm all out of tears, a new update comes from the hospital and the emotional roller coaster starts rolling again.

I have been clinging tightly to God's Word and His promises throughout this. Now I need to work on my endurance. I so badly want tomorrow to be eaiser. I want my big, strong Dad to be himself again. I hate seeing him this way. I've never seen him in this much pain or this weak or this helpless. And to think that the whole week he spent in the hospital before his bypass, he was his normal self! Dave keeps reminding me that this surgery probably gave Dad another 10 years of life. I just want this horrible recovery process to be behind us.

So, again today I will be driving my Mom up to the hospital. Again today we'll be trying to hold ourselves together and be strong for Dad. Again today, all I want to do is curl up under the covers and wait for this storm to pass. I do see lots of blessing and answered prayers though, don't get me wrong. The fact that this problem with his heart was even discovered is a total God thing. The fact that we live so close to the state of the art Meijer Heart Center is a blessing. There are many answered prayers and blessings all ready. I just think we're currently walking through the hardest and scariest part.

Thanks to all my praying friends out there. Each of you are encouraging me in ways you may not even know. Your prayers are holding me together like when Aaron and Hur held up Moses' arms so the Israelites could see victory. Please keep them coming. Victory is on its way.

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