Green Pastures

I wrote this on August 30th, when I had returned to the hospital with some complications related to my medications. I am out and doing much better now! Thank you all so much for your prayers and constantly reaching out and checking in on me!

Those who know me, know that I tend to do a lot. On any given day I was usually involved in dialysis, school and work; and on Friday’s you can include running youth to that schedule. More than once I got myself in trouble for doing too much and pushing myself farther than what was humanly possible.

As it was once explained to me in one of those overclocked situations, God gives us a perfect portion of grace and mercy everyday to get us through the day. But there is a limit to that portion, and like with all things that given of God, humans have the ability to push past the bounds of that gift through our own will. I found myself frequently outside of those bounds and in turn the will of God because I was so determined to not let my disease define who I was or what I did.

Then He gave me a kidney through a transplant. A transplant that I found out I was having at 9pm the night before. So in less than 24 hours, I had to go from doing everything to absolutely nothing. My only job was to recover for the next 3 months. But as everyone knows those are more like guidelines than actual rules.

I got the transplant on a Wednesday and was discharged that following Monday. I’m pretty sure that was some sort of record. Major surgery and discharged in 6 days. This resting thing was going to be a breeze.

Once I got home and got settled, I was ready to be back to normal in 2 weeks tops. Then I woke up Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and there was no change. A little bit of the opposite actually as they had changed my medication dosages every single day because my numbers weren’t right yet. Okay. It’s all good still, maybe the end of September is more realistic goal.

Week two post transplant hits. Things continue to get worse. My numbers look better but I am feeling worse. Now my body is officially feeling the shock of being opened up and having an organ forced in. Everyone has this idea that when transplanting an organ they are incredibly gentle, but no sometimes they have to force the organ to fit into the chosen spot, but that’s another blog for another time.

Now I’m officially at peak frustration. God has given me this gift but yet it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. Instead it’s a drain sticking out of my side and the inability to sleep through the night. Why would God only do 80% of a miracle?

It would take nothing for Him to just wave His hand and bring my original kidneys to life so I can just avoid all this pain. After all I did just go through 3 1/2 years of dialysis, I thought that would at least earn me a buy one get one free kidney. There’s nothing wrong with instant miracles but for me specifically, other than avoiding pain how would that help me grow. Short answer is I don’t think it would.

In my last post I wrote about faith. I think that I have a pretty good idea about what it means to have faith in God, at least as much of a grasp as He has let me have thus far. Patience and resting in Him, those are two of the many things that I’m really really bad at. You know what three months in a bed is going to teach me. Patience and resting in God, and probably a few other things I don’t even realize I’m bad at.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,”

Psalm 23:2 NIV

The word “makes” should not be read out of anger. He doesn’t make us lie down/ stop as a punishment, it is done out of love to help us grow. For a nonstop goer like myself, it’s helps me grow in an area where there has been little growth in a very long time. The only reason it’s greener on the other side is because the other side has taken the time to tend to it.