On the Altar

“I need healing. I need help. I’m not afraid of my weakness, for Your power is perfected in it. You are strong when I have nothing left to give. So I pray You’ll come. Be with me. Help me…For I know You are good, and Your plans for me are good. You are King. I submit myself to Your kingship and your lordship. Have Your way in me. I know I am not alone. You will go before me and make the rough places smooth.” - October 14, 2021

That was the prayer that I wrote one Thursday morning in October. I knew I didn’t feel well, but I had no idea what was before me. I had no idea the weight of those words, “go before me and make the rough places smooth.”

Later that night, I was in the E.R. with my parents. Blood clots. Everywhere. In my right leg, all throughout my lungs, and even one in the right side of my heart. I was scared to death. 22 years old. I thought I was completely healthy. I had never felt so shocked, so vulnerable, and so afraid.

We were speechless. There’s nothing to say in a moment like that. Just pray. We knew that it was urgent. My heart was straining, and it could only hang in there so long with a clot of that size blocking blood flow. God had to show up. There was no way around it.

I had seen the Lord move in my life time and time again. After years and years of praying, He brought me the most amazing guy — a guy I love and want to marry. But that was a dream, a deep desire, not my very life. I had never prayed, “God, I know You’ve saved my soul, I know You’ve worked miracles and answered so many of my prayers, but please save my life.” It’s a different kind of prayer.

The next morning, I was transferred to UAB Hospital to have surgery later that day. It was a heart catheterization. My doctor was going to insert a heart cath into an artery in my leg, thread it up into my chest, and pull out as many blood clots as he could. With my heart straining the way that it was, we had no choice. It was invasive, but the clock was ticking.

My parents prayed with me. My anesthesiologist prayed with me. And they wheeled me back to the operating room. Tears were streaming down my face. I knew God had to show up. I felt it. I could tell by the number of doctors in the room. And I was so incredibly afraid.

Within the first few minutes of pulling out clots, my heart gave up. My blood pressure tanked, and my cardiologist had to quickly decide whether to put me on ECMO or keep pulling clots as fast as he could. So he kept pulling — almost two feet of clots. My heart stabilized, and that’s when I woke up.

I remember feeling like a had a clothes-hanger in my chest. My mouth was dry, and I wanted to cough so badly. But the CRNAs kept telling me to hold still. They finally stitched me up and took me to the cardiac ICU, where I stayed for the next few days.

It was the hardest, most humbling, and traumatizing experience of my life.

But I’ve never felt the Lord so near. I’ve never been so afraid but so reliant on Him to come through. And He did. For weeks, I heard from every doctor and nurse, every friend and family member, “you’re a miracle.” And they’re right.

The doctors looked again at my heart the day after surgery, and they were astounded. They said that the way it looked after one day is the way they hoped it would look after three months. Another miracle.

When I got home from the hospital, I heard the song “Good Shepherd” by Upperroom, and it made me sob.

“Fill my lungs with the air of the mountain. And You are my holy guide, My vision in the heights. Miles and miles high, I don't see You getting tired. Oh, Good Shepherd, I follow where You lead. ‘Cause Your steps have tested the strength of the ground before me…

Though faint is my strength, You're my eyes, You're the way. You give grace to my faith so I'm climbing. You give me strength to my days so I'm climbing. Oh, Good Shepherd, I follow where You lead. Your steps have tested the strength of the ground before me.

Oh, Good Shepherd, You're faithful to take the lead. The way may be long, may be wild, but I know You're with me.”

His steps tested the ground before me. It’s like what I prayed that morning — “go before me and make the rough places smooth.” He was so faithful to lead me. Though the way was long and wild, He was with me. He filled my lungs with His very breath and caused my heart to beat again.

For He’s a God who brings the dead things back to life. And I’ll climb up on the altar again and again, knowing I am in His careful hands. He’s writing my story. And I want to live a life that honors Him and glorifies His name. That’s what it means to be a living sacrifice — to have a heart ready and willing to follow where He leads.

The Bible says that the eyes of the Lord look throughout the earth to strengthen hearts fully committed to Him (2 Chronicles 16:9). And He will strengthen us. For whatever He calls us to.

It’s only been four months, and I still don’t quite have all the words. Maybe one day I will.

I may still be afraid. My faith still falters, and I give way to worry. All too often I remember what came before the miracle, rather than all He’s done after. And though my body is completely healed, I sometimes feel the trauma of what happened. But when I trust Him, I don’t need to understand. For He’s worthy of holding my deepest and darkest fears. Only He can make them beautiful. Only He can take the greatest pain and turn it into good and glory. That’s what He did in Jesus. And that’s what He’s doing in us.

…

“Enlarge the place of your tent; Stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, spare not; Lengthen your cords and strengthen your pegs. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left…Fear not, for you will not be put to shame…” Isaiah 54: 2-3

“‘For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, But My favor will not be removed from you, Nor will My covenant of peace be shaken,’ Says the Lord who has compassion on you.” Isaiah 54:10

“Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God.” 2 Corinthians 9:10-11

“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for where I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10