My heart and flesh may fail...

I’ve wrestled with how to jump into this issue…I’ve even pushed it down my list of topics I want to discuss for a long time.  I think the way this should be handled is with a preface in which I lay out a few guidelines for what I’m trying to explain.

Preface:

            The following is an account of a definitive aspect of my life.  In telling this story previously it has been received with commendations of courage or comments of my own strength but I would like to insist that all glory be aimed toward the God who has been writing the story that is my life.

            So without further ado, the issue I want to discuss is my own heart and it’s complications.

When I was in 9^th grade I was on the JV wrestling team at Spotswood high school.  Part of being on the team, or playing any school sports was that I needed to have a physical from my family doctor.  I went to the doctor’s office and went through the usual pokes and prods that I had come to expect but then something changed.  The doctor had his stethoscope and was listening to my heart, he asked me to breathe slowly and deeply while he listened to the sound of the heart beating inside my chest.  He asked my Mom if we had a family history of heart problems…her face fell.  She began to explain her own heart problems along with a scare we had with my older brother Jonathan when he was just a baby.  The doctor was hesitant to say anything about my condition but called for more tests.

A few weeks later my Mom took me to UVA for an appointment with her cardiologist, Dr. Guchecell.  I choose to believe that I displayed a cool and calm that day that could only be rivaled by Brad Pitt or Robert Di Nero but this was not the case. Dr. Guchecell saw straight through my façade, revealing a terrified 14 year-old.  He began to run a battery of tests, starting with an EKG then culminating in an echocardiogram.  The Cardiac Echo is very similar to a sonogram but there’s no baby to be seen but a moving, beating and in my case, malfunctioning heart. 

The Echo revealed that the septum of my heart was much too thick.  A normal septum is 11mm(about ½ inch) thick; mine was measured at 42mm(almost 2 inches thick) that day.  Consequently, my heart has expanded to accommodate for the decreased room in the chambers of my heart.  The thickening makes it very hard for my heart to pump enough blood, in turn, making me very light headed and unable to do most strenuous physical activity. As bad as the thickening of my septum is it is not the real issue at hand, the problem with my heart is how the atrium communicates with the ventricles.  In essence, there are more nerves in the top chamber of my heart than there are reciprocal nerves on the bottom, meaning that if two nerves up top connect with 1 nerve on the bottom it could cause all 4 chambers of my heart constrict at once…this could be very, very bad. 

Having all 4 chambers fire at once could be very bad in multiple ways:

1.    Cardiac Arrest.  Cardiac Arrest is like you’re heart having a panic attack, it knows it should be beating but it is freaking out and in this freaking out it is beating so fast that it is not moving any blood to your brain or other important organs.  When you’re in cardiac arrest your heart is beating around 250-300 beats per minute.

2.    Sudden Cardiac Death: This one is pretty simple; my heart could stop without warning or provocation.

In 2001 I was diagnosed with Hypertrophic Cardiomypathy.

            My life changed very quickly; there was no more lifting weights, no more gym class and most notably no more wrestling or organized sports.  My world was sports, my world was an undefeated record in VHSL wrestling, my world was my own ability.

            In the wake of my life being turned inside out, I began to take playing guitar more seriously.  I started taking lessons every week and began learning covers of my favorite pop punk songs to play with my friends.  I very quickly forgot about wrestling, realizing that punk rock was much more fun than wrestling had ever been.

For brevities sake here is a readers digest version of my life from my diagnosis through coming to know Christ.

-Started a band called Swank and played tons of shows with my best friends.

-Began partying a lot, which seemed to come as a logical next step from playing the type of music we did.

-After making some BIG mistakes and the situation with my heart I decided that God either:

            a) Didn’t exist

            b) He sucked

Option A seemed like the better choice, less to feel bad for if God doesn’t exist.

--Around 16 began to describe myself as Atheist or Agnostic in school.

-Made another band called 67 Ninjas, it was a spazz-metal band and it was suuuper fun.

-Got into a lot of trouble with the law in connection with a party we had thrown.

-Was on probation and had to do community service and pay restitution for the damage to the house.

-Being grounded for life by my Mom, I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere I wanted.  One night I asked her where I was allowed to go and she gave me two choices.  Church Youth Group or Young Life…both seemed like terrible options but I ended up going to Young Life.

That’s when I met Ryan Jordan and Tim Hartin.  They lead YL at Spotswood and Ryan had heard I was coming from a friend.  Ryan’s roommate knew me and knew I was coming and told him I was coming from a guitar lesson to club and if he didn’t give me good reason to come back that I wouldn’t.  Ryan asked me to play guitar with him at club the next week.  Two weeks after playing guitar in club I told Ryan that I didn’t really want to come any more and he said one sentence “Who’s going to play guitar if you don’t come?”…good point, I thought, “I guess I’ll keep coming.”

Maybe two weeks later Ryan had convinced me to come to fall weekend at Rockbridge.  At fall weekend I heard the Gospel explained in a way I’d never heard before.  Tim Toy talked about Jesus like they were best friends, like he knew him.

I guess the rest is history.

Now onto my bigger point about my heart:

My heart is jacked up…there’s no disputing this fact.

Scripture says, “The wages of sin is death.”

The way that sin has affected my physical heart is extensive; the physical structure of my heart is broken. It is in open rebellion against other body parts, limiting their blood supply. 

The wages of a sin-tainted heart is death.  For the way Sin has effected my heart, I should be dead.

Scripture also says, “But the gift of God is eternal life.”

In May of 2008 I had surgery to have a defibrillator implanted.  This defibrillator monitors my heart rate and regulates it if it needs to.  It also watches to see if my heart would ever go into Cardiac Arrest and it can shock my heart to restore it to a sustainable beat.

My defibrillator and my sinful heart is the closest picture I’ve seen in my life of the Gospel.

--Psalm 73:26 says

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

--Ezekiel 36:26-27

26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

The truth is this; I don’t need a new heart, I don’t even need Jesus to heal my current one.  I have the Holy Spirit inside of me, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in and through me.

I can’t ever be mad at God for my heart or the way things have turned out in connection with heart conditions in my life and family, like my Mom dying from this condition.

If I hadn’t had this heart condition, I wouldn’t have played guitar, if I didn’t play guitar I wouldn’t have thrown that party, I wouldn’t have gotten in trouble so my Mom wouldn’t have made me got to Young Life.  If I didn’t go to YL then I wouldn’t have met Christ…I can’t be upset about this…NO WAY.

And this isn’t just me; this is God’s story for us.  God uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise(1 Corinthians 1).  The things that we don’t understand, the things that hurt, those are God’s megaphone of his redemption and love to us.

I pray we can rejoice in our sufferings and that they would reveal what is really important.  Our bodies may(will) fail but God’s glory and redemption are to come.