“Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 (HCSB)

Hope

The month of September started with a bang. Mark had his second total knee replacement. The first one was such a challenge that it took him seven years before he was willing to even think about having the second one done. But it was time.

We both approached it with fear and apprehension but for different reasons.

He remembered the pain he had endured the first go around before the nursing staff realized that morphine wasn’t helping at all. I assured him that now everyone had a much better handle on what to do for the pain and it would be OK.

With all the various and assorted medications he takes, I worried that they would not play nice together with the anesthesia, he would plunge into the pit, and not complete his rehab.

I was right on both counts.

The first five days were a nightmare and he doesn’t remember any of it. A recap: hospital released him too soon, he fell in the bathroom, firemen called to pick him up, trip to ER where he asked me if we were going to the Lone Ranger’s house, admitted with extremely low blood pressure, transfusion due to bleeding into the knee from the fall, overnight in ICU transferring to the cardiac unit, and home, again.

This time he was a model patient, doing exactly as instructed; the knee responded much better and all doctors and PT were very pleased. He’s five weeks out from surgery, with no cane or prescription pain meds, doing well.

However, about ten days after surgery, with all this trauma and drama, I hit a brick wall. So weary! I wanted to close the door to my room, not talk to anyone, be nice to anyone, or fix food for anyone — simply pull the covers up over my head for the day. Would this ever end? Was God going to fix it?

Each morning, I get up early to read my devotional books and Bible, trusting that God will have the encouragement that I need for that day. This was my lifeline during these difficult days and I am happy to report that He did. It might have been a phrase, a word, a verse, or a comment that seared itself into my soul and gave me hope.

HOPE — my word for 2013. It’s a been a challenging year. Too many hospital and doctor’s visits, too many medication changes, too many dark nights of the soul for Mark and weariness and wariness for me. Yet, whenever I think I can’t go on, He is there to pick me up and give me rest.

I looked back over the year to see if I had already mentioned HOPE. I quoted this thought in the first blog post of the year:

Don’t you know that 

day dawns after night,

showers displace

drought, and spring 

and summer follow 

winter? Then have hope!

Hope forever, for

God will not fail you!

Charles Spurgeon

A couple of weeks after surgery, we talked with our counselor and recounted the latest saga. After listening to all that had gone on, she turned to me and asked me if I had hope. I burst into tears and told her that is the only thing that has kept me going — HOPE in the living, loving Father God and trust that He will take me through it.

If you are right there — hang on. He will give you rest.

Holding On with Patient Expectation