Enjoying This Heart-felt Time of Year – in More Ways Than One

Have you noticed the big role the heart plays in so many facets of our culture? We have sayings and idioms like, “You’ve got to have heart.” “Let’s get to the heart of the matter.” “We were stirred by your heartfelt message.” “We need to have a heart-to-heart talk.” “Officials are focusing on the heart of the city.” “The great response was heartening.” "Affairs of the heart."

 

Most of these aren’t referring directly to the incredible human machine that starts pumping life-giving blood throughout our bodies months before we’re born and continues until to the moment we die. But they still underscore a basic truth: We can’t do without our hearts.

 

I still have the heart pillow I received
post-surgery 15 years ago.

Fifteen years ago today, I experienced this in the most profound way possible. I underwent open-heart surgery, not only to repair some arterial blockages but even more important, to have my entire ascending aorta replaced. Without this corrective operation, I not only could have suffered a heart attack, but with an enlarged aorta I was in imminent danger of an aortic dissection. If not properly diagnosed immediately when a rupture like this occurs, it’s usually fatal, as it was in 2003 for comedian John Ritter.

During the six-hour operation, I was put on a heart-lung machine to keep blood coursing through my body while they stopped my heart to perform the replacement and repairs. My new parts consisted in part of homograft material (human tissue) and synthetic material (Dacron).

 

Thankfully, after Dr. Morrison and his team had completed their work, my heart started back up, resuming its continual task of beating 70 times per minute on average, 4,200 times per hour, and about 100,000 times over a 24-hour period. Amazingly, it does this day after day after day, more than 36 million times in a single year. That means over my lifetime, my heart has already pumped more than two billion times!

 

As wonderful as that is, I’m convinced there’s more to the human heart than the distribution of blood to various parts of the body. Somehow, I believe, there’s a spiritual component to the heart, even though scientists might disagree, arguing there’s no such empirical evidence.

 

Over the years following my surgery that I served as a cardiac volunteer at the same hospital, I visited with patients who had undergone similar surgeries to offer encouragement and recommendations for their recovery process. It was common to talk with strong, macho-looking men who would tear up, thinking about what had just happened with their hearts.

 

Reading the Scriptures, we might rightfully conclude that God also views the heart as more than an important organ in human physiology. The passage I embrace as my “life verse” admonishes, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6). Note we’re exhorted to trust in God not only with our minds, but also with our hearts.

 

Proverbs 28:14 states it another way: “Blessed is the man who always fears the Lord, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.” Like King David, we're to cultivate a heart after God.

 

The heart, according to the Bible, also is the seat of our motivations. Proverbs 17:3 declares, “The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart,” and Proverbs 21:2 adds, “All a man’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart.” 

 

Yet another verse from the same book, Proverbs 4:23, offers this warning: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” We might paraphrase this to say, “Be careful about where we place our deepest affections, because those will impact the entirety of our lives.”

 

We could cite many other biblical examples, but perhaps the most significant of all can be found in Romans 10:9-10, “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”

 

As someone has said, genuine saving faith in Jesus Christ is a transaction that involves the heart (or emotions), the mind and the will. All three are necessary when we entrust our lives to Him as Savior and Lord. A decision made solely from the heart may waver when emotions of the moment have waned, so we must also align our minds with what our hearts are telling us. 

 

At that point, by an act of the will, our eternal, life-changing decision can be sealed. Then we can truly, from the heart, fulfill what Jesus Christ instructed when asked to identify the greatest commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mark 12:30-31).

So, while I’m rejoicing over a repaired heart that has served me unfailingly over the past decade and a half, I’m thankful also to God who promised, “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19). 

The Best Gift of All?

Christmas is synonymous with gifts – given and received. One of our preoccupations this time of year is what to get for that special person, family or friend. Will they like it? What if they don’t? And from time to time we’re asked, “What would you like for Christmas?”

If I were to ask you that question, you could probably rattle off at least several things. And the ones you mention would be different from mine, or someone else I might ask. But six years ago today I gained a new appreciation for a gift I’d already had.

Dec. 20, 2006 I joined what fellow members often refer to as “the zipper club.” A renowned cardiothoracic surgeon cut open my chest and performed life-saving heart surgery, giving me four coronary artery bypass grafts (referred to by professionals as CABG or “cabbage”), along with an aortic root  replacement – an entirely new ascending aorta. Then they sewed me back up, hence the “zipper.”

My original aorta was more than twice the normal size, and that’s not recommended. Picture a balloon being blown up to its maximum – and then blowing more air into it. Not a big deal with a balloon, but it is with an aorta. The bursting of an aortic dissection, an aneurysm or abnormal enlargement in the aorta, took the life of popular comedian John Ritter in 2003.

Following my surgery, my heart pillow
became my best friend whenever I had
to cough or sneeze.

So when I awoke after the 4½-hour surgery, I knew I’d received a gift – another day of life. Going in, my surgeon had said that given my age and overall physical condition, I had a 95% chance of getting through the surgery well. Of course, that also meant a 5% chance of not making it – during a major procedure like that, any number of problems or complications can occur. Thankfully, I had none.

In the days leading up to my surgery, while pondering my uncertain  future, I came across a Bible verse that I embraced as a promise from God. It said, “The Lord will sustain him on his sickbed and restore him from his bed of illness” (Psalm 41:3). God kept His promise, and on Christmas Day five days later, I understood I’d received a wonderful gift.

So every morning when I awake to start a new day, I’m reminded of this gift. Not one of us is assured of tomorrow, but going through a major illness or complex surgery makes that reality more apparent. That’s what I point out to recent open-heart surgery patients I visit as a volunteer at the hospital where I had my surgery.

During a season when we think in terms of “stuff” – clothing, jewelry, toys, books, games, all manner of electronics and technology – we need to remember that just being physically present with friends and family on Christmas morning is truly a gift. The simple acts of living and breathing are easily taken for granted; but when we think about loved ones that are no longer with us, we realize there is no guarantee.

Every day is, indeed, a gift.