We recently celebrated Jojo’s birthday. Bittersweet, our little girl has turned three. It reminds me that not too long ago, I had a very surreal experience in the back of an ambulance. Looking out the window in the back, I saw on my neighborhood and familiar streets going backwards. It occurred to me at that moment that it could’ve been the very last time I saw my neighborhood here on earth. I caught a glimpse of friends that had gone on before me and I thought to myself I could very well join them in Heaven before the day was over. It was then that I cried out the most simple and desperate prayer I could to the Lord Jesus, “I would be very happy to leave this life and be home with you if only I was a single man, but I am not! Please, please! Don’t let Micah and JoJo grow up without a father. Don’t leave my wife a young widow. Have mercy, let me come back in good health. Amen!”
I knew then, that even though I would be in for one of the most painful experiences of my life, that I would survive. I thought of the Apostle Paul again when he said, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Yet it is more necessary for you that I remain… I know that I will.” (Philippians 1:21-25).
Now, almost two months later, I celebrate and thank God that He has heard my prayer and I am alive and well. Undoubtedly, I am still on the road of rehab and it is, at least for me, a painfully slow one. I fully believe that the God of the impossible could heal me instantly, but there is a much deeper and more important work to be done: God wants to heal me from the inside out. This unfortunately takes time. Patience, perseverance, humility, faithfulness, and empathy, these are all things that delight the heart of God and make one the ultimate expression of what a human being should be. After all, we were created in the image of God. Like I said, physical healing for God is easy. A much more difficult thing is to forge character in a man or woman. I find myself again on the potter’s wheel. I for one, am very glad that my God is as patient as he is merciful.
As for Jojo and Micah, I sometimes feel that I am missing out on their most magical years. I want to run and roughhouse, sling them up onto my shoulders, and enjoy this fleeting time when daddy is still big and strong and can do anything. I was so afraid that their opinion of me would change. In actuality, I will never experience Jojo’s third birthday again. Still, it is more than consolation to me to think that perhaps by her next birthday, all my infirmities will be but a distant memory. Yet I myself, will be a much better father and husband than I would be were it not for the stroke. Hmm. Maybe from that perspective, I should consider it a “stroke of good fortune.”