Today is the anniversary of my bone marrow transplant. I am three (from an immune and blood formation system perspective at least). Yes, “it” happened exactly three years ago. Three years is a big deal in the medical community (according to what “they” have told me). My transplant specialist even told me once (at the end of year one) that he would not even consider transplanting me again if the disease returned before year three. Talk about a warm fuzzy! Well, I’m past that point now, and I’m well, and I’m getting more and more opportunities to share with those around me the most awesome love I’ve ever known; and it comes from the one and only “God man” who walked around down here quite a few years ago persuading many to believe what he has also persuaded me to believe, that he was and is the Son of God. That changes everything. It has changed my life and someday (barring the Rapture) it will change my “death.” No, one cannot truly encounter Christ and walk away the same. And that’s why I’m not sure exactly how well I actually knew Christ before I found myself near death.
I had “known” Jesus a long, long time, but it became quite evident to me when I was ill that I had never allowed Christ to turn me into a profoundly different kind of “creature” (as C.S. Lewis says). He has now (though I’m still “undone”). Many days, I have a hard time even recognizing me. Major organ failure? Cancer? Drugs (even high dose ones)? Needles (lots of them)? Many nights alone in hospitals? Virtual strangers caring for my only offspring? Absolute control over every drop of blood in my body to even more strangers? No more children? Regular blood checks from now “until”? A more than full life on the other side of all of this? Was this really me? The running record I kept of all these happenings tells me that it was. But the Angela I’d always known could never, ever have gone through any of this. She was a wimp. She was terrified of cancer (and needles). She hated medicine. She cringed at hospitals. She was a control freak. And the list could go on and on and on. Yet, many say they actually marveled at how she went through such things. Talk about a turnaround, huh? If you’d only known her before…..
Do you need proof that God is real? Please just take a look at my story. I lived out what for me was “impossible;” and that’s how I know God is real. Nothing else that I’ve ever encountered down here, none of the “natural,” can explain how and why I am what and where I am now. It was “supernatural,” a word whose power I feel as if our culture has somehow lessened. Yes, it was indeed supernatural in the sense that even the flesh of the one going through it (my flesh) had a difficult time actually processing it.
There’s a lot about me that one might be able to challenge: my “weak” theology (my doctorate’s in education), my parenting (of daughter and rescue dog), my extravagant chai tea habit (almost daily), my writing style (rather verbose), my past mistakes (rather plentiful), my inability to say “no” (aka: time management), my dress code (“designer” only accidentally), my house at times (book/paper-cluttered), and God only knows (literally) what else. No one, though, can challenge the fact that I met Christ in a way that I never knew one even could from down here. No, no one can convince me that I did not, as I lay near death, come face to face with a risen Christ, so much so that at times it felt almost as if he was actually holding me as I lay in a fetal position praying that I would not throw up again. And yes, experiencing Jesus that way was worth all it cost me.
As I state very clearly in my memoir, I still hope and pray that I never, ever have to go through anything like this ordeal again. But, I also cannot say that I wish “it” had never happened; and I cannot wish this just because I might have died without “it.” I cannot wish “it” away because I’m not sure that I ever could have felt Christ the way I did had I never been in the circumstances in which I was. Yes, being born again (again) was worth it! And no, I don’t continue to feel Jesus exactly this way now, even though I yearn to at times. But having vivid memories of such intimacy with him does help get me through what we call “real” life down here, though “real” life is someplace else altogether (something else he taught me when I was born again….. again). So, as Frosty the Snowman says in the old cartoon every time he comes back to life, “Happy birthday!” (And yes, I know, you really do need that snowman voice to get the full effect.)
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