When I had my recent brush with a “widow maker,” I had to
come to grips that it was only a brush and not a mortal embrace. Oh, did I forget to mention my heart attack
from earlier this month. I am used to other people having stories like this. I
had not been on the receiving end of some interesting comments until now. People
are quick with at least a few comments.
“I guess God wanted to get your attention.” The snide remark to that one
is “Get thee behind me!” The kind
answer, at least the one I gave, sounded more like, “No, God sent me the
courage to deal with this random event. My
heart attack has everything to do with my family and not my Father in
Heaven.” I remember over ten years ago
sitting in a church in Tyler, TX after the Columbia
disintegrated over East Texas. More than one sermon that Sunday must have tried
to explain it as the Will of God. Thankfully, the church I attended had a wise
pastor. “We broke the laws of physics;
it was not God’s will.” I ran headlong
into the laws of genetics; it was not God’s will.
The comment I wrestled with most (and still do) sounded like “We are so glad God saved you. You have so much more work to
do.” The wrestling match goes something
like this. Who am I that God should save me? What about the other 125,000
people in the past year who did not walk away from the hospital after a heart
attack. Why would God stack the deck in my favor? Am I so special that God had to break the
rules to keep me around? These are troubling questions. This past Sunday, I had
a divine revelation from an angel of the Lord to help clear things up, for now.
Mysteries, like understanding God, tend to be just that, mysteries.
First, the angel of the Lord. If you look at multiple
translations of the same verse, you will see where the translators take the
same Hebrew or Greek word and translate to multiple words in the target language.
For me, English is my most accessible target language. Take Exodus
3:2. Some versions read “There the angel of the Lord appeared to
him.” Others read “The Lord’s messenger appeared to him.” For most of us,
the word “angel” has specific connotations, divine being, frightening,
dangerous. “Messenger” on the other hand
has none of that baggage. The angel of the Lord who helped me with my struggle
is the Rev.
Adam Hamilton. He helps to pastor a
United Methodist Church in Leawood, KS. I have read a number of his books and
like his general stance, holding firmly to the Methodist center.
Two weeks ago, North Texas was gripped in the aftermath of
an ice storm and a worship drought. Any
service we might have attended, including our own, was closed out of concern
for safety. This past week, Suzanne and
I agreed—I was grounded. I had been
released from the hospital with my three new stents on Friday. Yes, if I could have been the fly-on-the-wall
attendee, it would have been fine. But
you put a pastor back with his congregation, even a ¼ time associate pastor
like me, and he will talk to everyone until he wears himself out and has to
spend that next day in bed, exhausted. These two events gave us two weeks of Church of the
Resurrection on-line, in real time. Rev. Hamilton is using old Christmas movies
as the hook for his messages, two weeks ago the Grinch, this past week, It’s a Wonderful Life.
Now the revelation. I will not try to repeat what Rev.
Hamilton said. You can review the on-line sermon
by your onesies.
Here is the point that drove home God’s mystery. At the end of the movie, once
George comes to his senses, God does not turn back the clock. God does not
soften Potter’s heart. God sends angels, messengers, and they looked a lot like
the people in George’s everyday life, people he touched in big and small ways
as he pursued the passion of his own heart.
When I drove to work on Tuesday, December 10, 2013, I finally stopped
running and decided that this nagging pressure in my chest could not be ignored.
I detoured to an angel who had pursued his passion for medicine. Dr. Ashford
would never call himself an angel; he was just doing his job. He sent me
directly to the ER at Denton Regional
Medical Center. Once I said the words “chest pain” to Courtney, she took me directly to more angels in blue. In the ER, Courtney, Ashley, and Vanessa turned me into a pin cushion in nothing flat. Here chew these, put this under your tongue. Doctor I-did-not-see-her name came back shortly, “Mr. Taylor, it is your heart.” When I see her at Kroger someday, I will still be able to recognize that calm, authoritative face. Ashley now tells me we are headed for the cath lab. “We may be able fix this with stents; you may need bypass surgery.” Way too many Taylor family members, many of them men, have heard these same words. “Let’s do whatever we need to do.” That was it, informed content and agreement, no time for paper work—really. In the cath lab, I meet another team of angels led by Dr. Gary Fazio. Dr. Fazio, Jason, Anthony, and Mark each answered their passion and their calling to bring
healing to me. Did God hold their hands
because it was me? Did God give them divine knowledge because it was me? Did God simply trust the greatness that each
one strove to give every patient? The names go on, Heather and Lance in the
ICU, May, Sara, Nina, Linda, Caroline, Peter in the CVCU. Then there are all the ones I forget. The bottom line for me is that God brought a
whole village filled with angels to bear on my behalf to bring healing to my
life and Suzanne’s life and lives of the 5 children and 4 spouses, the 7
grandchildren, and all the other people who touch our lives in this wonderfully
interdependent experience was call life.
When I drove to work on Tuesday, December 10, 2013, I finally stopped
running and decided that this nagging pressure in my chest could not be ignored.
I detoured to an angel who had pursued his passion for medicine. Dr. Ashford
would never call himself an angel; he was just doing his job. He sent me
directly to the ER at Denton Regional
Medical Center. Once I said the words “chest pain” to Courtney, she took me directly to more angels in blue. In the ER, Courtney, Ashley, and Vanessa turned me into a pin cushion in nothing flat. Here chew these, put this under your tongue. Doctor I-did-not-see-her name came back shortly, “Mr. Taylor, it is your heart.” When I see her at Kroger someday, I will still be able to recognize that calm, authoritative face. Ashley now tells me we are headed for the cath lab. “We may be able fix this with stents; you may need bypass surgery.” Way too many Taylor family members, many of them men, have heard these same words. “Let’s do whatever we need to do.” That was it, informed content and agreement, no time for paper work—really. In the cath lab, I meet another team of angels led by Dr. Gary Fazio. Dr. Fazio, Jason, Anthony, and Mark each answered their passion and their calling to bring
healing to me. Did God hold their hands
because it was me? Did God give them divine knowledge because it was me? Did God simply trust the greatness that each
one strove to give every patient? The names go on, Heather and Lance in the
ICU, May, Sara, Nina, Linda, Caroline, Peter in the CVCU. Then there are all the ones I forget. The bottom line for me is that God brought a
whole village filled with angels to bear on my behalf to bring healing to my
life and Suzanne’s life and lives of the 5 children and 4 spouses, the 7
grandchildren, and all the other people who touch our lives in this wonderfully
interdependent experience was call life.
I can now embrace the mystery, God healed me. Thanks be to God.
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