{"id":1168,"date":"2017-07-10T22:04:41","date_gmt":"2017-07-11T05:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/felixculpa\/?p=1168"},"modified":"2017-07-10T23:31:41","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T06:31:41","slug":"needed-a-light-unto-my-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/felixculpa\/2017\/07\/needed-a-light-unto-my-path.html","title":{"rendered":"Needed: A Light Unto My Path"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"photo-1423853978401-35df4077ff7d_opt\"<\/p>\n

Three blog posts have been written in the past week by yours truly. All of them skirted around the heavy issues on my heart, because frankly, I\u2019ve not wanted to discuss what\u2019s on or in my heart. Truth is, I don\u2019t want to go to Cleveland. There are as many reason for my hesitancy as there are grains of sand (drama, drama, drama). But the biggest reason is that if my doctor\u2019s here are correct in saying I will have to make a decision between whether to have a life threatening surgery now, or later, when it will be more life threatening? Well, I don\u2019t want to make that decision \u2013 mostly because I feel completely unequipped to make it. How am I supposed to decide whether to have surgery now and risk dying when I could\u2019ve had a few extra years, or choose later, when I\u2019m more likely to die, but hey, at least I will have had a few more good years before my death?<\/p>\n

Do my options even make sense to the reader??<\/p>\n

Yes, I\u2019ll listen to the experts. Yes, I\u2019ll listen to my family. Yes, I\u2019ll try and hear what God is impressing on my heart. But again, if what the doctor here says is true, the decision will ultimately be mine and mine alone.<\/p>\n

Sort of like last Summer, when I was told I had breast cancer (I didn\u2019t, thank the Lord). I was attempting to gather all the info, ask family, ask God \u2014 what shall I do? Have chemo and radiation? Or just surgery? Or just surgery and natural medicine? The difference with that decision was that I was positive in the deepest depths of my own soul that I should not do chemo or radiation, especially considering the rest of my health issues. I can\u2019t explain it. But everything was more clear cut and obvious.<\/p>\n

Now, a year later, I\u2019m faced with another decision, and in the midst of the grief of losing a parent, which you can read about here<\/a> and here<\/a>. How does one push away grief, and the depression that often accompanies grief long enough to make weighty decisions? Life and death decisions? The answer is that I don\u2019t know. All I know is that I feel foggy. Like I can\u2019t quite see through grey, misty coldness, and yet I have to keep stepping. One foot in front of the other.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been reading Dad\u2019s Bible that he used when I was a child. It\u2019s KJV, because back then (or maybe just in the circles in which I was raised), you were going to hell if you read anything but the \u201cinspired version.\u201d (You\u2019re supposed to laugh at that.) In Psalm 119:105, it says that the Word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I need. A light unto my Cleveland path<\/a>. I know my destination. But when I arrive, I feel I\u2019ll be walking a rocky, dark, and chilly path \u2014 and of course with my luck, I\u2019ll be sporting heels, and I\u2019ll have forgotten my glasses and sweater. I just feel blind and unsteady at this point. Not knowing what to expect, but trying to be open to anything. Pliable in my plans. Pliable in my thinking. Pliable in my decision making.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m preparing to hear just about anything. That they need to perform surgery and it has to be done via open heart. Or that the doctor won\u2019t start out performing open heart, but fully expects it to end that way. Maybe he will tell us of a healing method that doesn\u2019t involve surgery. Maybe he\u2019ll tell us technology has advanced in ways unbeknownst to my doctors here. Maybe he will tell me to go home and enjoy life until my pacemaker dies, even though the lead is faulty, because after that, there\u2019s nothing they can do. Maybe he\u2019ll tell me he\u2019s never extracted leads as old as mine, on a person as old as me, and therefore, we\u2019re calling off all surgery and hoping technology advances enough to provide me with another way to keep my heart beating by the time we\u2019ve exhausted all our resources.<\/p>\n

But then I remember what my doctor from Harvard said, which is that at some point, I must have this surgery, and I just resign myself to it and hope for the best. The best being that I get to see the next two grandbabies come into this world this Fall. That I get to stick around long enough to know them, and whoever else God might decide to place in the care of our family.<\/p>\n

Our days are numbered. Can that number be changed? It\u2019s not like an iPhone password, where you hit a few buttons and do the switcheroo. The number of our days is etched into God\u2019s unwavering plan. Or is it? Is His plan pliable? Can we pray our days be prolonged, and have those prayers result in God punching in some different numbers?<\/p>\n

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.<\/em> (Ps. 139: 6, KJV)<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s where I am. Loaded with questions. Feeling a little guilty that \u201cthe best\u201d, to me, is still the option to stay on earth where so much sickness and death and injustice takes place, rather than in Heaven where Christ and peace reign. Kind of anxious. Still grieving. A little depressed from the grieving. Feeling lost, or \u201cpowerful confused\u201d as we like to say in this family. Asking for the dark path I\u2019m on to be lit up by Almighty God, whilst understanding that the path might be one I cannot understand. Will you pray with me that though I may not understand the path I\u2019m to take, that it will be clear which<\/em> path to take, and that I will walk it in faith, hope, trust, and joy, convinced that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose?<\/em> (Rom. 8:28, KJV)<\/p>\n

Dad loved Romans, apparently. It is substantially more marked than any other books in his Bible. Did my love for Romans get handed down to me somehow, or is it just that every Christian will naturally love Romans? I do spend a lot of time there. It reminds me of the wages of sin, the fact that I was\/am predestined to be His (grace, grace!), and nothing can separate me from His love. Not grief. Not depression. Not anxiety. Not the unknown. Not confusion. Not fatigue. Not heart surgery. Or no heart surgery. Not the possibility of a long, painful recovery. Not even death.<\/p>\n

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. <\/em>(Psalm 23, KJV)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Three blog posts have been written in the past week by yours truly. All of them skirted around the heavy issues on my heart, because frankly, I\u2019ve not wanted to discuss what\u2019s on or in my heart. Truth is, I don\u2019t want to go to Cleveland. There are as many reason for my hesitancy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2920,"featured_media":664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[174,21,159,173,35,171,175,105,164,172],"class_list":["post-1168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anxiety","tag-chronic-illness","tag-cleveland","tag-depression","tag-grief","tag-hope","tag-life","tag-prayer","tag-surgery","tag-trust"],"yoast_head":"\nNeeded: A Light Unto My Path<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How does one push away grief, and the depression that often accompanies grief long enough to make weighty decisions? 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