New liver? Awesome! Medicine side effects? Not so much…
Dear God,
Don’t get me wrong, Lord. Not a day goes by when I do not thank you for sparing my life and giving me a new liver. I am so very grateful for your intervention in my life. I don’t dwell on the things lost. I see them now as just things. I can’t even believe how important I made them.
I almost don’t even want to bother you with another request but I know you like to be “bothered.” That’s a mystery I cannot fathom. You, the very creator of the universe, are also the lover of my soul who wants me to bring my needs before you. So here I am again. We’ve literally spent thousands of hours together over these past two years. I talk. You listen. We move.
Lord, I remember the night lying on the cold bathroom floor crying out in pain asking you to end my life. I begged you to end the pain. The image of you, faceless, sitting on the floor next to me with your back leaning against the wall is etched in my mind. I heard your whisper and then a supernatural warmth went through my body like the warmth of a wood stove and then the pain was gone. I remember pulling myself up off the floor by using the toilet bowl for support. I remember climbing into bed and pulling the covers up over my shoulders. I remember falling asleep without pain. I was unnerved by your presence. Who am I?
Tonight I am back on the couch where we spent so much time together. It was here that I cried more tears than I thought humanly possible. It was here where I begged for the first light of morning night after sleepless night. It is here where I talked and you listened and sent your peace time after time.
Lord, I am asking for relief again. They tell me my anti-rejection medicine is causing these headaches. I have advice coming from every angle from people I call my “liver friends” who started walking the transplant road before me. I’ve tried drinking more water, I’ve fiddled with the times I take my meds and I’ve tried taking them with food. Still the bass drum resounds in my head.
It seems silly to me. I mean, I had my old liver cut out of me and a new one put in and I can’t handle headaches now and then? But Lord, they are limiting. They put me back on this couch in the middle of the night. Tonight I missed Skyping with my son because I could not handle the noise and light. Even now I type this with my screen brightness down as far as it will go. I write hoping to take my mind off the throbbing.
So Lord, I’m asking you to intervene again. I’m asking with a grateful heart because you raised me up off this couch before. I’m asking with total confidence in your healing power because you have worked miracles in my life before. This pain is not at all like the pain I had. I am not begging you to end my life. I’m asking you to remove the limits that these headaches bring.
Lord, mentally I am ready to work again. Physically, I am ready for your next assignment. Emotionally, I ache to make a difference in peoples’ lives. Spiritually, you have given me a heart that is much more like Jesus than it was before. I feel ready. Am I?
Pain makes us consider weird things. As I lay here writing this, I am drawn to go into the bathroom and curl up on the floor to see if you are there. But that’s silly. I know you are not limited to bathrooms.
Heal me? Bring relief?
Drinking from the Same Dipper 
Yesterday, while working a host Donate Life Organ Awareness table at the hospital, I realized the story I orginally told about my brother had changed. While your’s and Josh’s story played on my laptop beside the the huge tri-fold poster with the pic of your beautiful shiny bald head ,Howey Mandel goatee and contagious smile, I had to remove the words”Awaiting Transplant”. While there for only two and half hours ,I got to share with several people passing by on their way to work; going to therapy; visiting loved one and possibly undergoing some treatments of their own, they would STOP-LOOK-and ASK. Who’s the guy on the poster and laptop. NOW I could say MY brother and that nothing brings us to a closer awareness than the personal. Before I could only share what your life was like(and for others awaiting the HOPE of transplant) and NOW . The EXCHANGE : you have (and transplantees) are ALIVE but now with limits. Financially; rejection; medicines countless side affects such as diabetes,osteoporosis,high blood pressure; immune system vulnerabilty; de novo neoplasia(new growths)
Sorry hit the wrong key. POINT = you wouldn’t change the opportunity to receive the GIFT of LIVING. The need for everyone to REGISTER is on a scale of DESPERATE. 18 a day who die waiting may sound small in relation to our population but not to one of those 18. Perhaps as with many post transplant recepients life will hold NEW directions because of those limitations. Do what you can with what you have is ALL that has ever been required. It is different for everyone but one things is the same – the Affect transplant has had on your life WILL Effect countless others.
It’ll go away, you just have to be patient. It’s okay if you want to take a short cut through Jesus, I would to. Yet sometimes we just need to wait, one morning you’ll wake up and “wa laa”, it’s gone. Believe me, it will get better. You are so blessed to be able to be feeling so well after only two years, focus on that. We will be praying for you as well.