Heart Failure to Transplant: Imagine Jesus There With You

The following entry was published to my CaringBridge journal on Oct 18, 2014:

Friday's Jesus Calling entry was a much-needed reminder to not worry (granted I read it this morning, after worrying quite a bit yesterday when I read some pretty dismal post transplant survival rates). It said when the future must be considered, to imagine Jesus there with you. Very comforting reassurance that I needed to hear.

After reading that I felt a deep need to do the PERS-SOAP-ACTS devotion style again instead of just reading Jesus Calling or Words of Hope.

The Scripture recommended at the bottom of Jesus Calling was this:

Luke 12:25. Who of you by worrying can add one single day to your life?

Zing! right on target.

I wrote this as my observation and application:

I have been researching statistics and outcomes. I know I am NOT a statistic and more searching past a certain point does nothing to help me. I have enough information to guide my decisions. I know I will pursue transplant and pray for healing. I know days may be short, and so I must live accordingly - and isn't that always true? But how it is so easily taken for granted.

I need to be able to pay attention to symptoms terms without worry, without casting my mind ahead to see what this ache or that increase in breathlessness forbodes. I mustn't try to guess how much time I have left at every turn.

Living that way will rob me of the beauty and joy God has for me today, at this moment. Worrying doesn't add to my life - it steals from it.

I can trust Jesus my Savior, I can trust God my Father, I can trust the Holy Spirit my Comforter to guide me. Is this symptom a reason to call the doctor? God, the Triune God, cares for me, and He will let me know. He will lead, I will follow.

I'm alive today. I have this capacity now. Imagining the future where I dwindle or suffer or die is not a good use of this precious gift.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, capture every thought to Christ. If I must think of the future, imagine Jesus there with me. That is the only way to really live in the face of death.

That's what I wrote this morning.

This afternoon, I wondered what the longest someone has survived after a heart transplant. I almost searched it, then hesitated. Was this information I really needed? But then I felt a nudge to search it out and a whisper that in doing so I would be encouraged.

I found this article:

http://m.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/younger_patients_more_likely_to_live_a_decade_or_longer_after_heart_transplant



I am encouraged!