Wednesday, January 31, 2007

One can never say thank you enough. As I drive to work each day a church sign reads "Give without remembering and take without forgetting." I like this sign and hope that I remember to do just that in all things.

Thank you for your prayers for Fred. We believe in the power of prayer and today was a testament to that belief.

He went for outpatient surgeries. Yes, surgeries, one for a cyst in his right hand that had grown into a vein. This sounded very scary as the doctor had described stripping away the vein during a visit to his office. Fear tried to grab hold, but deep down we knew we had to believe. The second was for an inguinal hernia. This was part of Fred's stubborn attitude that he is always fine, he had to give in and allow it to be repaired. Our primary physician was disbelieving that Fred would want two surgeries in the same day and added more tests from a heart specialist possibly delaying or canceling the operations due to Fred's "advanced age". We still believed and prayers were being said, this would be fine. The heart specialist could find nothing that would present a problem for Fred to undergo his surgeries, so it was on for Tuesday.

We arrived on time and were told to sit in the waiting area until he was called. This was delayed by about 20 minutes but he was told to don his hospital gown and be careful of the open back. The nurse was thorough in all her instructions and an IV was attempted twice. She gave up and said she would get someone else to attempt a third try. Fred and I said prayer asking God to bless these nurses in all they did, to bless their day with excellence. The next nurse came in and in less than a minute the IV was in place. I knew this was normal procedure and all was in order, but ultimately, Fred had to wait four hours before they came to take him to the waiting area of the surgical area. In this four hours he was started on his second IV. I thought this was a very good thing, as Fred had been advised he was slightly dehydrated when he had received a SCIO treatment the day before from Brenda. A second IV bag of fluids could do nothing but benefit Fred. During the four hours we watched some TV, listened to praise music from Lakewood Church interspersed with a meditation tune here and there. Even TBS was airing his all time favorite movie "The Fifth Element", this was a calm and peaceful morning with all of his favorites things except for coffee, bread and jelly.

At 1:30 PM his surgeon for his hand came out to tell me Fred's surgery was excellent, the cyst was smaller than he had originally visualized and had to remove a very small portion of the vein. He stated he could foresee no problems in recovery and that the remaining surgery was going well. At 3:20 PM the second surgeon appeared in the waiting room and advised me Fred was doing fine, but would probably have a lot of pain since he repaired one big ugly hernia.

All in all, Fred did extremely well, which any day in surgery is a blessing. We did not realize how well until he was in the final stage of the recovery prior to being discharged. His nurse apologized for the process taking all day only due to every other outpatient surgery having some type of complication. Fred had been their easiest surgery patient the entire day. As we drove home Fred told me the last thing he remembered prior to his surgery was saying the Prayer of Protection. The light of God surrounds us, the love of God enjolds us, the power of God protects us, the presence of God watches over us, the health of God flows through us, wherever we are God is . . . and all is well. We say "Thank You God", we shall never forget this blessing. We say thank you for all your prayers because without them things just might not have gone so well. We know and appreciate the power of prayer and their blessings.

The title of this past Sunday's Sermon was "Ex Fide Fortis" which means from faith come strength. Fred only shares the title of his talks with me prior to Sundays. I hear them the same time that everyone else hears them. This past Sunday, when he spoke of Peter getting out of the boat and actually walking on the water to Jesus and then becoming fearful, I knew I had experienced this recently at my work. I know I am fine with my friends from church, my friends at home, but work is a place of choppy waters, and people unaware of the power of faith. After centering myself and recognizing the divine presence that is in all of us, I could handle it much better and things went smoothly for the rest of the week.

The universe always provides, we just have to be on the lookout for those provisions. As a student of the "72 Names of God" by Yehuda Berg I was provided with not just one name of God this week, as is normal. Yehuda provided three names of God: ayin lamed mem "eliminating negative thoughts", mem hey shin "healing", and kaf hey tav "defusing negative energy and stress". Just what I needed at the exact moment.

Thank you God for our faith. Thank you God for our blessings of health, friends and love for one another. Thank God. Amen.

Blessings,

Fred and Kat >^. .^<