gracEmail
Edward Fudge
BACK TO GOOD HEALTH
With the Psalmist I pray, "I will extol Thee, O LORD, for Thou hast lifted me up. O LORD my God, I cried to thee for help, and Thou didst heal me" (Psalm 30:1-2). After nine months of leg pain which increased in frequency and severity whenever I stood or walked, and after a progression of unsuccessful treatments including chiropractic, medication, physical therapy and a steroid injection in the spine, God gave me relief and healing two weeks ago (June 1998) through the skillful work of Houston neurosurgeon Dr. Rob Parrish who removed a herniated disk in a two-hour surgery. I went home the same day and walked half a mile the day following -- although for the past two weeks I have been generally limited to lying down or standing up.
For your hundreds of e-mails, cards, letters, virtual cards and especially your prayers, I give you humble thanks. The knowledge that I was being prayed for by God's people across Christendom and around the world has been immensely strengthening. I was blessed by every such reminder, and was moved to tears by one such message from gracEmail reader Moto Nomura who, after 40 years of difficult ministry, now meets with about 20 Christian believers. "When our small group of believers here in the mountains of central Japan gather at the Lord's Table, " Brother Moto wrote, "we will be remembering you."
God's "angels" included the dedicated and caring nurses and staff persons at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, my own loving family, and so very many of you. The old pain is completely gone. The doctor assures me that a somewhat deadened foot and slight ache in the leg resulted from normal trauma to the nerve during surgery and will also pass soon. I hope to resume work half-time on Tuesday, and full-time beginning next week. I am hopeful that the ability to walk again will eventually eliminate the need for some blood pressure medicine as well.
I look forward to resuming gracEmail -- and appreciate the testimonials to what it means to many of you. While I expect to pen two or three pieces based on my recent surgery and recovery, I promise not to dwell on that any further than I reckon it will be edifying. All praise to Jehovah Rapha -- "The LORD our Healer."
gracEmail
Edward Fudge
FAITH WINS OVER FEARS
It is true that 48 hours earlier I had been deeply anesthetized during surgery. More anesthesia than usual, as it happened, because scar tissue from an earlier epidural prolonged the procedure, and also to offset a sudden increase in blood pressure during surgery. Then there were the post-op pills -- an anti-inflammatory, a muscle relaxant and a narcotic pain reliever. Whatever the reason, sleep had been troubled both nights since surgery. Frightful nightmares, interrupted by waking almost hourly to a sense of horror and thoughts of death. I prayed for peace of mind and sleep, but neither came then. I wondered if my faith had failed.
On Thursday, daughter Melanie gave me a present -- handwritten words of a favorite old hymn, which she taped to my bathroom mirror, and which I read with reassurance each time I awoke after that:
Savior grant me rest and peace,
Let my troubled dreamings cease;
With the chiming midnight bell
Teach my heart that all is well.
I would trust my All to Thee,
All my cares and sorrows flee;
Till the breaking light shall tell --
Night is past and all is well.
With that prayer, I thought of Abraham, who also experienced "terror and great darkness" (Gen. 17:12). Of others who experienced "darkness and the shadow of death" (Psalm 107:14). Of the Savior himself, who agonized with sweat-drops like blood and eventually cried out, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Lk. 22:44; Matt. 27:46). I remembered that God is present in every situation, even in the deepest darkness. Slowly God reminded me that faith is not feeling, and that it often coexists beside great fear. As my mind cleared, I knew again that God's faithfulness, power and love do not depend on our subjective perceptions of reality. I remembered that faith means entrusting ourselves to God despite all perceptions. And as I exercised that simplest faith, my feelings of forsakenness gradually changed and fear vanished into the night.
gracEmail
Edward Fudge
REFLECTIONS OF A 'TURTLE'
I say "reflections of a turtle" because these are a few thoughts that impressed me deeply while I was lying flat on my back for large periods of time during the past two weeks following back surgery. (And, unless something really motivates me, this is the last you will have to hear about that entire experience.)
The first morning after surgery I gained a profound appreciation for the simplicity of intimacy, when wife Sara Faye came to my bedside with a breakfast tray and proceeded to feed me, spoon by spoon, a wonderful bowl of warm oatmeal coated with brown sugar. I was too "stove up," as they used to say back in North Alabama when I was a kid, to reciprocate the service, but did insist that she make herself a bowl also and take a bite of hers between each bite she fed me. That quiet, loving experience could easily be duplicated without the physical infirmity marking that occasion -- and I quietly resolved to do just that for my bride since 1967 one of these upcoming Saturday mornings.
The simplicity of intimacy has spiritual application also, I was reminded, as I read about half of Richard J. Foster's wonderful book Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home (Harper Collins, 1992). Long-time friend Wayne McDaniel of Phoenix had recommended this book to me several years ago but I had not been still long enough to read it properly until I found myself on my back for several days. Foster, who is a "Friend" of the Quaker variety, draws from the best spiritual writers ancient and modern, as he calls us to draw near to the eternal Father who longs more than anything else to hold and to bless his dear children. Foster is known for his book Celebration of Disciplines and as founder/director of the spiritual renewal movement Renovare.
These "turtle" days also provided insight on my own place in time and history as I read much of the 1125-page historical fiction novel London, by Edward Rutherfurd. The author is noted for his gigantic works which focus on a place and trace half a dozen imaginary but typical families through a couple thousand years. I had earlier enjoyed Rutherfurd's 1300 pages of Sarum (an old name for Salisbury, England and the area around Stonehenge), and had begun his 760-page Russka (the Russian name for "Russia").
It is both gratifying and humbling to view the panoramic perspective these books provide. Gratifying, because they confirm that individuals make families, shape nations and determine history. Humbling, because they remind us that generations come and go, families rise and fall, and that is the way matters both are and ought to be. Death is as natural as life in our present world; immortality must wait for another world to come. Character is the highest achievement for which one might hope to be honored, and its inculcation in our children is the greatest legacy we might be privileged to leave.
For more on this mortal life, click here.