Tuesday, June 15, 2021                     (today’s lectionary)
Give Margaret a soft and clean heart
You know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sake he became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
We are getting closer. Today Margaret had pre-operative pulmonary testing. Today at 11:45 she will have a diagnostic angiogram of both the arteries and veins in her heart. Left and right. Her heart’s strength, measured by its ejection fraction (thanks, Whitney) was in the normal range (55) on June 7, the day after she entered the hospital, when things were at their worst. That is one of the more important signs pointing toward a strong recovery from all of this.
So we are getting closer. The heart surgery itself, having taken a long time coming, will be either on Wednesday or Thursday. Looks more like Wednesday. Of course we’re nervous, but I don’t think either of us is afraid. Not for long anyhow. There is something in Margaret’s eyes that breathes confidence, not in how the surgery goes, but in God. For me too, that is something that rises up inside, this confidence in God’s goodness, not in his rewards or awards or gifts or anything like that, but his goodness.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord, his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them. Praise, the Lord, o my soul.
She had a few conversations today, with Marc, video call with Andi-Aly-Jasper, with Jeannette Elliott … we took walks and sat together for awhile inside, and then outside (it hit 99 degrees in Austin yesterday), taking about this and that. We both took a two hour nap in the afternoon after our amazing nurse Audrey put a big black sign on the door, “DO NOT ENTER.”
I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God while I live.
Audrey likes to sing, and she knows how, because she grew up in an Amarillo Church of Christ with their non-instrumental four part harmonies. So as the afternoon wound down, we wound up with Johnny Cash’s rendition of “Daddy Sang Bass.” Audrey danced her way out of the room.
One of these days and it won’t be long
I’ll rejoin them in a song
I’m gonna join the family circle at the throne
Later she came back with the usual, organically unreadable forms about every possible thing that could go wrong during today’s procedure. Margaret signed them, initialed them, and passed them back. Really, there was nothing in them to fear. God’s control and love and joy inside us is palpable to her. She has known Jesus all her life. And now, she was ready for bed.
Jesus said to us, Be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and on the good. He causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Earlier, cardiologist Dr. Liu told us more about what to expect, although we have heard most of it already. As he left we shared with him our continual prayer, that God would make Margaret’s heart soft and clean. Create a clean heart, O God. His eyes softened. “That is so beautiful,” he said.
Oh the circle won’t be broken
By and by, Lord, by and by
Daddy sang bass (mama sang tenor)
Me and little brother would join right in there
In the sky, Lord, in the sky
(2 Corinthians 8, Psalm 146, John 13, Matthew 5)
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