And so tale one closed with Susie knowing the essential fact that she needed God. Tale two culminated twenty-seven years later, in 2003. I will be breaking tale two into two parts: the physical part\u00a0first, and the spiritual, emotional warfare waged against me in the second part. And throughout that entire season of my life\u2014at first very unknown and very scary\u2014God was working it all together for my good, both in the physical aspect and in the\u00a0spiritual realm.<\/p>\n
Way before 2003 when I was 48, I had a sense that something wasn\u2019t right with my heart. It started in my early thirties. I remember teaching away, in my last class of fourth graders, when wham!<\/em> I was hit in the chest with gripping pains. I\u2019d hold onto my desk as I stood in front of the kids, quietly praying and trusting God for help. Then as quickly as it would start, it stopped.<\/p>\n Several times over the next ten to fifteen years the same thing would randomly happen. Finally, in my mid-forties, I\u2019d had enough. I went to the doctor.<\/p>\n After a history of my family and health\u2014no heart problems on either side of the family, I didn\u2019t smoke or drink, I was underweight (at the time!), and I was the picture of health\u2014the doctor prescribed allergy meds. No heart check. Just pills.<\/p>\n Well, those pills did<\/em> help; my eyes weren\u2019t as itchy as they had been, but chest pain still randomly struck.<\/p>\n I returned to the doc again. This time he prescribed anti-anxiety medication. I was secretly outraged, but I didn\u2019t know how to \u201cfight city hall\u201d. Believe me, I\u2019m learning to advocate for myself.<\/p>\n I had a very active lifestyle, but in my early forties, I noticed I was losing steam. It got more intense; I was exhausted with little exertion, but since the chest pains were so infrequent, I thought I was just out of shape. I would try to keep up and did to a point, but would experience long seasons of utter fatigue.<\/p>\n But the whole time, I had that niggling thought in the back of my mind: Get your heart checked<\/em>.<\/p>\n God is so good! He knows how to take all the garbage the devil throws our way and then He remolds it into amazing deliverance and help. How He does it, I have no clue\u2014but that\u2019s why He\u2019s<\/em> God and I\u2019m not. And am I ever glad of that!<\/p>\n I am a coffee drinker. I drink lots of it. Used to drink even more\u2014the strong stuff\u2014often espresso drinks. I love my mochas! But, as with many women, caffeine can aggravate the tissue in your breasts. It doesn\u2019t cause cancer, but it can trigger fibroid cysts.<\/p>\n In 2003, I found a humongous, painful lump in my right breast. It was different than any I had ever found. I went to the doctor (a different one) who had known my history of cysts, and he was very concerned following the barrage of mammograms and ultra-sounds. Things didn\u2019t look good; this could be a cyst, but chances were, it might be disguising something more malignant. I needed surgery.<\/p>\n My dad came to town to take me to the hospital; he was at my home that night before the planned lumpectomy. But I was an eighth grade teacher with a full schedule, and had to make four days of detailed lesson plans. I was at work till very late, only to greet my dad briefly when I got home, and then get ready for bed\u2014and surgery in the morning.<\/p>\n Dad was in the guest room asleep as I sat on the edge of my bed around 11:30 or 12. And then, WHAM!<\/em> I was kicked in the left side of my chest by a mule! I clutched my heart, prayed, bound the devil in Jesus\u2019 name, pled the blood of Jesus, and commanded the pain to cease.<\/p>\n God, what do I do? Do I go to the hospital and then call the hospital in the morning and say I can\u2019t go to the hospital\u2014I\u2019m in the hospital? What should I do?!?<\/em><\/p>\n The pain slowly faded and peace came upon me. I would sleep and trust God\u2014and in the morning tell the doctor what happened.<\/p>\n The next morning, after telling my dad about the incident, I told the nurses at the hospital, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be impolite and die on the operating table, so I must tell you, I had kicking chest pains last night.\u201d<\/p>\n A cardiologist was called in, and finally I had my first EKG. And sure enough, it showed that my ticker wasn\u2019t quite right. I told that doctor!<\/em> I thought, feeling vindicated and not in the least concerned\u2014I knew that God was now taking care of the situation.<\/p>\n I went through the surgery\u2014instead of a gargantuan tumor, they found of cluster of seventeen cysts all twisted together\u2014and removed them, and I was good to go. And I had a quest to pursue\u2014find out about my heart.<\/p>\n Through a\u00a0flood of tests and procedures and a very frightening angiogram (also known as a cardiac cath) in which the cardiologist could not find one of my coronaries and was cursing under his breath and jamming the scope and storming away only to return and jam again\u2014I prayed, God, either help him now to find it or make him quit.<\/em> No one\u2019s puncturing my arteries!<\/p>\n He quit. I was glad. And in a far more peaceful environment a week later, in a different test, they found the problem. My right coronary artery was attached to the left side of my heart and wound between my aorta (the candy cane-shaped part) and my pulmonary artery, blocking the flow of blood to the right side of my heart when my heart-rate increased\u2014whether through exercise, stress, anger\u2014whatever.<\/p>\n However, here\u2019s the interesting thing: The only known symptom of my condition is not chest pain\u2014it\u2019s sudden death.<\/p>\n A year after heart surgery\u2014by-pass\u2014I was still experiencing exhaustion and random chest pain. Finally in 2007, I went to an allergist and discovered the cause. I had asthma. And then in 2009, my contractor discovered the mold that had been brewing in the house due to previously-addressed plumbing issues, and now, after removing all the mold, and two great allergists (one human and the other, Almighty), my health is getting better and better all the time.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the deal:<\/p>\n Romans 8:28 states very clearly, \u201cAnd we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n God can take the worst that the devil devises against you and turn it around for your good. God\u2019s not<\/em> behind giving someone a house full of mold or asthma or chest pains or cysts, but He knows how to take the raw material of an attack from the devil and rewire and reroute it into your victory and for your good.<\/p>\n If you are dealing with the unknown or the scary, rest assured: God will cause it all to work together for your good because you love Him and you are called according to His purpose. Stand on that truth, and let it be the pillow on which you lay your head at night. You are loved by the Lover of your soul, and He will be your strength, your help, and your deliverer. Amen.<\/p>\n Dorothy<\/p>\n Tomorrow: Not alone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And so tale one closed with Susie knowing the essential fact that she needed God. Tale two culminated twenty-seven years later, in 2003. I will be breaking tale two into two parts: the physical part\u00a0first, and the spiritual, emotional warfare waged against me in the second part. And throughout that entire season of my life\u2014at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-connections","category-testing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4778"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4799,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778\/revisions\/4799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n