Sabbath Rest

Dear Riverside Family,

My recent visit to the hospital has been such a blessing to me, a gift from our Gracious G-d, I am convinced; and I wanted to share a few insights from it with you.
As preface, since last March, I have been working six days a week, eight to nine hours a day. It has become increasingly stressful and more physically demanding, and lately I realized that I was very depleted and exhausted and was not finding Sabboth rest.

With commuting, and trying to be with my father when I could, and trying to take care of a house, and be a part of the community that I love, evenings and my one day off, Sunday, were just as exhausting. I was running on empty, and I so know better. I was reading the Bible morning and night, was keeping up with the parashah with our community, was remembering to pray with those on our prayer list when I could, but I was not finding time just to be with G-d: meditation, contemplation; I could not find time for these. I was snatching time with G-d; thirty minutes, ten minutes, when I could.

The very things that give me life, I was finding less and less time for. I found myself living a life so many of us find ourselves living. Since my divorce in '96, I have tried to live without debt, and had done so until this last year. But now I've taken on a house, two cars, and all that goes with that. And so I wasn't sure how to stop. So, G-d, momentarily, stopped it all for me.

This last week or so , I've been having numbness and pain in my right arm, in the afternoons and evenings. I was so tired, and Friday and Saturday, my chest hurt and I was winded, I thought, too easily. Friday, I called my parents' cardiologist and made an apt. for today, Wednesday. About 4:00 am Sunday, I woke with alot of pain in my chest and back, and going up my neck, and down my shoulder into my arm. My arm was numb from the hand going up and hurting from the shoulder going down. I got out my Bible and read the psalms, and prayed, and tried to calm down. Then tried to rest, but I couldn't. The pain persisted. I hated to wake my daughter, but at 5:00 I did, and told her I needed to go to the hospital. I thought I might be having a heart attack. We arrived at the ER of the Heart Hospital around 6:00 a.m.

I called the Roper's on the way, and John prayed with me over the phone, and Sonia came to the hopital. What an incredible brother and sister in the faith they are. In the ER, the tests came back okay, but the doctors, the ER doctor and the cardiologist, thought I should have a heart catherization. I had that around 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon.

And there several of G-d's wonderful miracles occurred. The first was that one of my brothers and his wife, with whom I've had a difficult relationship, for which I've been praying, came to the hospital and stayed through the procedure. Not only that, but my brother and sister in law, held my hands and my brother said a most beautiful prayer for me. My bother, until just the last month or so, has not attended church for years, and has told me that he trusts no one, and I was affraid for him that that included G-d. It was such a precious gift to hear him pray.

Then, much to the amazement of the doctor,nurses and technicians, my heart looked great; the arteries were clear and healthy looking,probably amazingly so for one my age and weight. Thank you, Lord. And thank you prayer warriors.

But two more blessings occrred that day. When the procedure was finished one of the technicians or nurses, I'm not sure which, put pressure for about fifteen minutes on the main artery in my leg which had gained the doctor access to the arteries of my heart. When they took me back to my room and were transfering me from the OR bed to my room bed, I felt a sharp and great pain in my leg and mentioned it, and I've never seen such scurrying. Five of them worked on me. Two ripped off my bandages and started preasure to my artery, spelling one another. Two started putting fluid into me through my IV, I'm assuming saline water, forcing it in as quickly as possible by squeezing the bag as forcefully as they could. One monitored my vitals calling out numbers.

My artery had burst open and I was bleeding into layers of skin of my leg and trunk. They later said I turned very pale and was loosing blood presure rapidly. I just remember in the middle of it, I could feel myself slipping away. I knew I was passing out, so I called out to them ( I thought with great wit) that I was leaving them and would see them later. And no sooner had I said that than one of them yelled at me," No, you're not!" And that yell brought me to myself again.

I remembered a book I've been reading lately. The book is Agnes Sanford's The Healing Light. It's funny, I've had the book for years and never really read it, but it came to my attention lately, and I've felt compelled to read it. What came to my mind is how she says that G-d so wants to give us the life He has for each of us, healing, whole life, but how we have to apporpriate this into our lives. One way we do this, or maybe better, the way we do this is to thank Him for this life - acclaim it and Him. As I was beginnning to loose consciousness, I couldn't think of the exact prayer or prayers she uses in the book, all I could think of , and what I repeated to myself was, " Thank You, G-d,for my life. I choose life!. I choose life! Thank You, Lord!" I just kept repeating this until the nurses started talking to me and things started settling down.

How good G-d is to give us just what we need when we need it. I have found again and again in my life that G-d will draw me in closer to Himself, and put tools in my path, just before a challeging time, as one of the ways He helps me through them. Praise be to You,O Lord. It was a powerful moment for me. I've had so much unwellness the last few years. It was almost as if in my cry to Him, I was entering a covenant with Him. I don't know how else to describe it. It just felt so powerful. On another note, the doctor recommended that I take the entire week off, I think perhaps because of this incident, and that is such a blessing. May I use it well.

One more thing happened that I would like to share. Just as they were bandaging me again, and my Grey's Anatomy moment had passed,I heard my sister in law and my daughter and others talking in the hall. My sister in law came in with a photo of my heart taken during the cath and it was causing quite a stir with the nurses. Two of the main arteries in the heart, my heart, start out straight and fine, but end in squiggles - but not just squiggles, perfectly insinc squiggles. Some of the nurses said they'd never seen anything like it. One felt that it might cause problems in the future, one disagreed. All seemed very curious. Linda Marceau came in about that time and I showed her and told her what I saw was my heart dancing for joy- it was my heart dance for G-d. It seemed a fitting end to all of this. It was so good to share it with Linda. Thank you , Linda for coming to see me and share in all of that and for your prayer.

It also reminded me of the logo for Riverside. These little artery squiggles resemble the lines representing water - the river - of Riverside Community. And that makes sense for me as well, for truly this community is imprinting and getting inside my heart.

Also, it reminded me of paintings I did a few years back, some of which I've put out on Sunday mornings as my depiction of Psalm 50:10, "Create in me a clean heart, O G-d, and put a new spirit within me." It was as though G-d was showing me very physically that He was doing that.

Thank you, again for all your prayers. I can't wait to hug you all on Sunday. Oh, I almost forgot, when I first got to the ER, I opened my Bible and it fell on the page of Psalm 41 which begins, "Blessed is he who considers the poor! The Lord delivers him in the day of trouble; the Lord protects him and keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land;thou dost not give him up to the will of his enemies. The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness thou healest all his infirmities." Alleluia!

Shema,

Millie