First let me say, Your prayers worked. I am recovering well. The constant pain in my arm is gone. And my head is no longer permanently bent down and sideways. I am on Hydrocodon and I tend to fall asleep 8 times a day.
It has been 3 days since I was put under the knife. And The LORD has shown me some Amazing things.
Ironically, These last few days have been spiritually some of the best of my life. But for you guys to grasp how incredible they have been I must start form the beginning.
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Awesome, I can't wait to hear more.
A month ago, having lost $50 thousand dollars in the stock market, I sold everything and washed out of the stock market. The check containing what was left of my inheritance was received, deposited two weeks later, and put on hold for 2 weeks more. At this time one of my born again, coworkers let slip to another that she was in deep financial trouble. And the Lord started to deal with about her. You see, I have always had a problems surrendering large amounts of money for anything. Much less willing to give away large amounts freely. This has always been a stronghold in my life.
The amount Jesus put upon my heart to give her sucked the wind out of me to say the least. And so, Jesus And I struggled over it for the entire month my “nest egg” money was locked down.
On Sunday the 22nd My pastor preached a message about “greed and the power of giving” with all the biblical technicalities involved. This message cut me to the heart as my coworker’s situation was brought back to me by the Spirit of Christ. Yet I resisted it, and when I got into my car to go home, the radio had the SAME message but focused upon the woman who gave Elisha the small cake. I Told Jesus I would give her the money but that I had to KNOW it was His will in a real unmistakable way.
My operation was scheduled on the afternoon of Tuesday the 24th. On that Tuesday morning my wife and I had an appointment at a coin shop to invest 25% of our nest egg in precious metals. On Monday the 23rd the money in the bank became accessible.
On that Monday morning I arrived at work and on my desk was a breakfast biscuit, with a note on it saying “I will be praying for you and your operation” and it was from that same hurting sister in question whom Jesus had been dealing with me.
I went to the bank and pulled out all the money in cash my wife and I were going to need for the metal investment on Tuesday, plus the Large amount Jesus told me to give her. Honestly, when I gave her the money, letting go of the all that money in the envelope was one of the hardest things I had ever financially done. She was weeping and praising God for it was the exact impossibly large amount she needed! That obedience was nice but also agony to me.
That same day my boss insisted I turn in my doctor’s note for my surgery, and the nurse in his office refused to fax me one, so grumbling about the hassle at lunch time, I drove all the way to my surgeon’s office in North Raleigh to pick up the note. On the way there I called the Coin shop and got an updated quote on the cost of the gold we wanted to invest in. When I drove away from my Doc’s office, with said note I hand, I messed up and turned the wrong way. As I tried to figure out where I was and how to turn around, I drove right past another coin shop that had a sign out front with its phone number on it. Just for fun, I called the number, and asked the guy for a quote on the same amount of gold we where scheduled to buy the next day. Not only did the guy have the exact number of coins we wanted to buy, but he had personally bought them “cheap” for his own investment over the weekend! He told me these coins did not belong to his shop, so he was more then willing to turn them around for quick profit, tax free to me, if I could buy them in cash. Which I was carrying in my pocket! When he told me his price, I slammed on the breaks!
Ten minutes later, I owned the exact number of coins, my wife and I where already going to buy the next morning. And The LORD gave them to me, saving me, returning to me, the exact amount of money I had given away to my sister only TWO HOURS BEFORE!
GLORY!!!
But wait, there is MORE!
When I went to Israel last year two of the things I wanted to buy there was a real 1st century roman silver coin and a real widows mite. I had done the research and even had pictures of them that I took on the trip with me. Both of which I could not find in Israel that was not a forgery or ridiculously priced. So I let that dream die. On Tuesday morning, the day of my surgery, my wife and I went to the appointment at the coin shop and bought silver. While we where there, expecting nothing, I asked if they happened to have any 1st century Israeli or Roman coins. They had BOTH a perfectly preserved, perfectly struck in Judea, fully documented Roman silver coin and a widow’s mite. I now own them both and picked them up for a fraction of the price the internet was quoting them to be. The shop owner and I weighed the real roman silver coin, ran the math, and I now have a small leather bag containing the exact amount of silver by weight that Judas sold out Jesus for. And it is shocking how little the bag weighs. Holding it, makes you want to weep for how cheaply Judas sold out his own soul.
But wait there is MORE!
The afternoon of Tuesday, I was checked into the hospital and was rolled into surgery.
I was scheduled to have a simple one hour operation to have my herniated disk removed because it was pressing my spinal cord in half and to have a cadaver bone put into it’s place with that section on my neck being fused by a small bracket.
BUT--- When they opened me up, they my neck bones started to fall apart!
It turns out that 6 months ago, the car accident I was in had broken my neck! I have been literally walking around for over 6 months with a broken neck, where one fall could have killed me or paralyzed me for life! Jesus had protected me all this time from this disaster, and the surgeon did not understand how I could have physically lived with the pain that long. My simple “one hour” surgery had instantly turned into a 3 hour “touch and go ordeal”. What was to be my 1 inch surgical puncture was turned into a 5 inch gash across my throat so they could “reach everything.” What is also amazing, is that my surgeon also happens to be one of the best traumatic broken neck repair surgeons in America. The situation I was in was right up his professional ally. Thank you Jesus!
But wait there IS MORE!
While I was under….
While I was under, in a surgically induced coma. I was not alone!
What should have been a few minutes of blackness for me, just to awaken to a nurse in “post op” turned into a 20 minute discussion with Jesus! I am weeping now just thinking about it!
There I was, laying on the operating table, under the lights, counting down, and everything faded to black. I was resting in this darkness, for what seemed a minute or so.
Then I was walking in a field of waist high golden wheat. I had always been there. The day was a perfect “sun shinny day” but there was no sun! Just light. The wind that lightly blew sending waves through the wheat smelled lightly sweet of every flower ever created! The smell was so subtle and yet was overwhelmingly wonderful all at once. As I walked, feeling the wheat touching the underside of my hand I came across a small clearing where a large white and blue tallit was laid down like a picnic blanket. As I stepped onto it I realized it was a tallit and worried if I had gotten it dirty with my shoes. But I had no shoes on! And as I sat down I realized where I was, there was no such thing as dirt, or bugs, here. Everything was perfect! I was in perfect health. I was young, fit, and strong. Every hair on my body had a thing for this place. My very atoms harmonized and matched the glow of everything else in the field. I was finally in reality. A reality that was so perfect that our world seems rice paper thin, in all it’s fakeness, in comparson.
Then He was there!!!
Jesus took my hand and sat down next to me. Holding my hand in his we talked and talked. He laughed at my silly questions and answered them all. The thing I remember about Jesus’ face was His eyes, His eyes where such a beautiful brown and they looked through me, sending waves of love, acceptance and pure joy through me. I was so shy. So shy that I could only glance into those eyes only a few time before I blushed and turned away. The Love, the love was so thick, and strong that just sitting there I KNEW exactly how much he loved me no matter how much of a mess I was. Jesus Loves me. He loves me with such a passion that my human words could never, ever, describe it well enough if I wrote about it for a thousand years. I am weeping as I write this! It was so overwhelming!
I was with Our LORD for what seemed 20 minutes and I can’t remember a single question or answer! But I do remember Jesus’ character. His casual, laid back friendship and my absolute utter acceptance by him. I feel like a 2 year old with a crayon trying to draw you guys a picture of the ceiling of the sixtieth chapel! I feel like a kid fresh out of a 3rd world slum trying to describe the 15 course meal I just had with the Queen of England, and all I have to offer you is a pathetic Tweenky as proof! Heaven MUST have it’s own language because human words can’t even touch what I am trying to tell you about sitting in Jesus’ love!!!
I was in paradise holding the very hand of the lover of my soul and then, I was flat on may back, in agony, being yelled at by a nurse! I simply told her I wanted to “go back to the field” I stopped breathing the alarms when off and faded away. They had to revive me 3 times and each time I told them That “This place was only a dream and that I wanted to go back to the field to be with my LORD” and I would stop breathing. After reviving me for the third time the pain was so bad I could not find my way back home. All I could do was lay there weeping in pain and disappointment as I spoke in tongues. They then put me on the maximum dose of morphine and admitted me to stay in the hospital for overnight observation.
But there is MORE.
Around 8pm that night they rolled into my hospital room, a man who had just had a heart attack! As they admitted him they asked him if he wanted to talk to a chaplain, he cursed and spat out “no”. And hour passed and the man started to moan and cry out that he was going to die. He had No hope! None! Here I am having just spent the afternoon with the creator of the universe, and this guy was so utterly lost that he could only moan and cry like a condemned felon with the death penalty. There could not possibly be a greater dichotomy of person’s experiencing the differences of amazing grace, and eternal seperation, in that room!
So I spent the night preaching through the curtain to him about the Love of Jesus for him!
I told him that He was not going to die, because the Kingdom of God had drawn near to him and that Jesus had brought us both together for this very night! I said many things I don’t remember. But I do remember it was filtered directly through the very sense of character I had felt in that field.
When I checked out of the hospital, he had already had by pass surgery, and he begged me to pray with him. I lead him through repentance. He told me that his sister was coming to see him and that she was Pentecostal. I told him to go to church with her, to be baptized in Jesus’ name and that Jesus would meet him there with a power and grace he never imagined ever knowing and that when Jesus did meet him that he would shout in a new language when it happened.
Like I said it has been an amazing few days
But then so amazing is the God we serve!
That is an encouraging reminder that God has a bigger shovel than we do. Thanks for sharing it. No more grumbling, eh?