I know exactly where I was sitting eight years ago at this very moment. I was in Duke Hospital, and I had just received the news that my husband received a heart donation. Surgery would start later tonight, and it would continue until 5:00 in the morning on August 7th.
That seems like a lifetime ago. So much so that sometimes people will ask me, “How’s your husband doing?” in an off-the-cuff way, and I hesitate wondering why they’re asking me that. Then I remember, “Oh yeah, the heart transplant.”
How far I’ve come since that dark day on August 6, 2010. I remember during that week somebody saying something about “October,” and I thought to myself that I couldn’t see October in my mind. I couldn’t imagine it coming because I couldn’t imagine what it would look like. Would I be a young widow by then? Would my husband be alive but disabled? Would he be alive but with a new heart fighting to survive in his body? I couldn’t imagine life ever going on.
But it did … at a fast and furious pace.
Eight years later and there has been joy and sorrow, laughter and tears. We’ve birthed two baby girls, we’ve buried our two mamas, we’ve changed jobs and moved, we’ve endured a miscarriage. And there’s been other private stuff that everyone battles. Such is the nature of living in a broken world with broken lives.
But that new heart? It just keeps on beating. Keeping up with the year-in and year-out of our lives like a champ. So much so that we’ve forgotten. That’s why I hesitate when people ask me how John’s doing because, “What do you mean? Why do you ask? He’s fine, of course.” I’ve forgotten.
In many ways, this is a blessing. God delivers us so that we can move on and finish the work He has for us to do. He doesn’t want us to wallow in what once was.
Then there are times when we need to remember.
I wish I could tell you that my faith has been rock-solid the past eight years after watching God reach down and bring my husband out of death’s grip. But it hasn’t. I’ve questioned if God was really for me, if He was going to come through for me, and why He is sometimes so silent. I’ve had to force myself to remember.
Heartaches become blessings when we remember. Suffering is inevitable, but what a gift to have a toolbox of remembrance to fall back on when suffering comes.
Today I remember. I remember how God brought my husband back to life, but also how He brought me out of a pit of despair. He showed me His supernatural peace. Now I know it’s real. I was a slave to my idols, a slave to myself. And I was delivered.
God was with me. God is with me. God was for me. God is for me. God came through for me. God comes through for me, and He will again. God is sometimes silent. But He is always listening. And in His time He will speak.
I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.” (Psalm 77:11)
Praise be to God for his miracles and for the gift of remembrance! And thank you to my husband’s heart donor’s family and their gift that not only saved a life but created three more. Today as they remember and mourn, we thank God for them and ask Him to comfort and love them.
Read the full story of our heart transplant journey here.
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