Anniversaries Are Among the Very Best of Celebrations

Anniversaries are fun, aren’t they? At least most of them. We can have a slew of them, depending on how celebratory we’re inclined to be. Birthdays are anniversaries of our birth. Couples celebrate their wedding anniversaries – for many, also their patience, understanding, and perseverance. If we like our job, we can commemorate the anniversary of our hiring. Entrepreneurs can mark the founding of their businesses.

 

Several members of our family celebrate adoption anniversaries, and I know many people who make it a point to annually celebrate the anniversary of their spiritual rebirth.

 

For me, Dec. 20 is an anniversary that signifies I’m still here to celebrate it. That day in 2006 was when I underwent open-heart surgery – four coronary artery bypasses and an ARR, which stands for Aortic Root Replacement. In other words, my entire ascending aorta was replaced after a serious aneurysm had been detected during a routine angiogram.

Open-heart surgery isn’t a phrase that’s in most people’s standard vocabulary, and it wasn’t in mine either until two weeks prior to undergoing the procedure. Having a stent or two put in to open clogged arteries is one thing; having your rib cage splayed open so a cardiothoracic surgeon can get to your heart directly is something quite different.

 

The aneurysm on my aorta was 6 centimeters, more than twice the normal, 2.5-centimeter size for the ascending aorta, so that wasn’t a good thing. Like a balloon inflated beyond its capacity, it could have dissected (burst) at any time. And meeting a surgeon who announces he will be performing the needed corrective surgery isn’t on anyone’s bucket list either. But that’s what I was facing 17 years ago. 

 

Lots of things began racing through my mind. Our youngest daughter was getting married the next spring. My first grandson was due to be born the following summer. And I wasn’t convinced I was finished doing what I’d hoped to accomplish over my lifetime. Like Woody Allen once said, “I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

 

Since my condition wasn’t an emergency, the surgery was scheduled two weeks out. I had to undergo a couple of CT scans in the meantime so the medical team could get a literal picture of the situation. That gave me lots of time to think and pray and deal with a fair amount of anxiety.

 

As I had done during uncertain times in the past, I picked up my Bible and turned to the Psalms. I read several psalms and prayed a lot. I didn’t try bargaining, since I had faith God was in control, working out His plan for me and my family, whatever that happened to be. But I did admit to Him that I wouldn’t mind sticking around for those special events coming up in the next year.

 

On the second day after my diagnosis, I again opened the Psalms and started reading where I’d left off, Psalm 41. When I got to verse 3 the translation I was reading said, “I will raise him from his sickbed and heal him of his disease.” Wow! That verse might as well have been printed in neon lights. I hadn’t been seeking a specific “word from the Lord,” as some folks call it, but there it was, as if God were saying, “Don’t worry, my child. I’ve got this – it will be all right.”

 

Other translations express this verse in slightly different ways, but almost instantly I was experiencing “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,” as Philippians 4:7 promises those who trust in the Lord. Years later I came across a similar verse from another psalm, also written by King David. It read, “For great is Your love toward me; You have delivered me from the depths of the grave” (Psalm 86:13).

 

Prayer is a funny thing. When things are going great, we might give prayer lip service – sometimes quite literally. But during difficult times prayer becomes indispensable, like a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean during a severe storm. In Philippians 4:6 we’re instructed, “in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Then the aforementioned “peace of God…will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

 

I know prayers are not demands that God is obligated to fulfill. He’s not, as a friend of mine once said, a “short-order cook.” But 17 years ago, the Lord guided me to the right hospital and the right surgeon at the right time, bringing me through that surgery so I could experience the gift of life many times over. It’s an anniversary I’ll always treasure.