Quality of Life

What a vague and interesting term.  That was what was talked about during my recent laproscopy.  My doctor said I should now have a better and improved quality of life.  Yet Derek and I both drive cars, live in a safe house, have a pantry with so much food that even my friends' kids comment of the enormity of it.  Justin has a closet full of so many collared shirts (all of which he never wants to wear) that I could clothe an orphanage of small boys.  We go out to eat every Friday night.  We are not in want or need or ANYTHING.

Ashley Brown, one of my best friends, is now in Ethiopia with her husband where they are meeting the children they are going to adopt.  To add to their brood of 4 children already.   The world says they are nuts.  The Word says they are obedient.   There's no better picture of the gospel than the act of adoption.  If you heart is in the least bit being stirred to adopt, go read their blog.  It makes Derek and I want to get on a plane right now!

I am willing to bet that any child at the orphanage in Ethiopia that the Browns are currently visiting would want my quality of life in a heartbeat.  Yet it somehow got better for me.  Why me?  I know there are times we all wish we had it better, but why do we have it so much better than the rest of the billions in the world?

My heart has been aching for human trafficking this past year.  Young girls, women, caught up in a industry against their will.  Yet if they could get one taste of freedom, wouldn't they want a better quality of life?  Don't they deserve it as much as I do?

It's all the grace of God.  Pure and simple.  It's all about the goodness of God.  After an excellent talk Jay Brown gave recently in Sunday School I, as well as Derek and Justin on their own, memorized Psalm 34:8-10: "Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.  Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.  The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing."

God is in control.  He is Sovereign.  Am I living a life where God is enough and His refuge is enough?

I started memorizing Isaiah 58:8-9 the morning of my surgery: "Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear;  then your righteousness will go before you and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.  You will call, and the LORD will answer;  you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I."  Crying out to the Lord for healing!

I was telling my pre-op nurse about what my prayer for that day was.  I recited the verse to my doctor as I was already feeling light headed as we went back for surgery.  I tried to get one of my rigid nurses to laugh as we went through the double doors.  I don't remember anything past that, so no telling what came out of my mouth.

Apparently I smiled post-op as Doctor Dunn was telling me that he not only found but got rid of my endometriosis.  It had spread to my bladder and ovaries, but thankfully the rest of my organs looked okay.  One woman had it on her ribs, liver, and her heart.  Yikes!  No way could I have gotten pregnant with the amount of scarring I had inside my body. Praise you, Father, for giving me a surgery to clear me of my infirmities.

Recovery took longer than expected as I thought I would bounce back instantly.  The gas passes from my diaphragm through my right shoulder - that was almost the worst of the pain.  The gas the size of a small basketball would roll around in my stomach for days.  It was crazy painful.  I would move like an old woman.  I kept thinking I will have much more compassion on my c-section friends and the elderly.  You can only move so fats sometimes.

I had this surgery days before Easter.  Anytime I would want to whine about how I felt I kept thinking of the cross.  Nothing compares to the sacrifice at the cross.  And it's the same God of love who allowed me to have a discerning doctor to rid me of my silent disease, as they call it.

I have never felt better.  I can finally eat again!  All these foods that would upset my stomach can now be ingested like all the rest of the world.  I had a cycle right after the surgery and I thought it was a joke.  I wasn't bedridden with my heating pad for days.  I am hopeful it continues like this.  No wonder people would look at me strange when I would tell them, "It's that time of the month", looking like I had been run over by an 18 wheeler.

It has caught me off guard the desire to want to conceive again.  Almost to the point where I wanted to try the shots again.  Derek and I had decided to do the surgery and call it quits.  I have been prayerful about being obedient to whatever the Lord's desire and will for my life is.  To take away anything that is my flesh and only replace it with Him.

As I read the Browns journey through their current adoption I keep asking myself how my heart can be unsure of what to do next.  Still desiring to adopt, though equally desiring to get pregnant.  Needing discernment!

In case you wondered what I looked like, here is the attractive patient right before gong in to surgery.  I had to go to the bathroom seconds before they were all coming to wheel me out.  I had to go with my gown tied in the back and my IV wheeled beside me as I kept apologizing as I ran to the bathroom.  All the while making sure the gown didn't fly open in the back.  Priorities!  You had better believe it was the fastest I had ever peed.



































Many many thanks to my Aunt Joannie and Uncle Tim for keeping Justin overnight and all day during my surgery.  This out-of-the-closet UT junkie was in hog heaven not only sleeping the bedroom with UT decor but wearing it while watching the Rosebowl championship DVD.  What can you do?  His father and I won't buy him the stuff, but if he wants to wear it then so be it.

Such a blessing to have family to rely on here in Houston!  And Justin can't wait to come back and play the Wii.  wink wink

So while my quality of life has definitely improved, per se, my heart is continuing to ache for those that have no hope for a Savior.  Who have no one to model what love is supposed to look like.

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love
Like you have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks yours
Everything I am
For Your kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity**

**Lyrics from Christy Nockels' Hosanna