Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Chapter 23: Celebrating Recuperation

When I finally was released from the hospital to return home, eleven days after I went to the emergency room, I was told to not lift anything heavy and to rest. 

I immediately started making phone calls to secure my short-term disability payments, and to insure that my job was still secured. It was stressful. 

I still had a bag stem in my stomach that the doctor did not want to remove until I had healed some, in order to make sure that everything was going where it was supposed to before it was removed. I had an appointment for October 2 to determine whether or not it could be removed. 

I then received a phone call from my mortgage company instructing me to register my new mobile home with the state in order to have my taxes escrowed into my house payment. So, I attempted to do that as well. 

Then, on the Friday before I was to go to the hospital to have the procedure done to check my progress in order to have my bag stem removed, I got a call from my doctor. I was told that without a referral from my primary care physician, which I had not even met yet, my insurance would not pay for the procedure. So, I had to rush to make a doctor's appointment with the doctor that never returned my call before I went to the emergency room. 

By a miracle, I was able to make the appointment the day before the procedure was to take place; but, because it would take time for the insurance to get the information, my procedure was scheduled for a day later. 

I just wanted my life back to normal. I wanted to go back to work. I wanted not to worry about my finances and not to lose all God had given me thus far! At times, I broke down in tears in fear of my future, but I didn't let it incapacitate me. I didn't stop moving forward, praying for a breakthrough. The devil was mad. I had now made it through my surgery, and was home recuperating, so he was going to do everything in his power to make me miserable, once again. 

I worried about my dogs. I had just got them back. I didn't want to have to send them away again. I worried about eating. I had no food in the house. What little I had wasn't going to last. And, without money coming in, how was I going to pay my bills?

Finally, I let go. I decided that if God wanted to allow me to lose all He had given me, I was still blessed. I would remain blessed, because I knew God wouldn't put me where He didn't need me. And, if I was where God needed me, then He would insure my survival, somehow. I was His servant. I didn't deserve all He had already given me. So, if He decided to take it, who was I to stop Him?

I listened to Lauren Diagle's "Trust in You" again. A lot.

I had saved about $500 before my illness. So, I had that to fall back on for my first house payment in October, along with my lot rent, and a few bucks to eat on until then. On October 1, when I was supposed to get my check for all my leave pay from work, I was told that it would not arrive until the middle of the month. What was I going to do? I still had phone, internet, electricity and car insurance to pay. I was broke. 

So, I did the only thing I could do: I asked my mother for another loan. She asked me, "Why?" So I told her, "I just learned that I am not getting paid until the middle of the month, and I have bills due before then." She agreed, and it eased my burden until I could get paid. 

I went to the bank to deposit my money, and the teller asked me how I was feeling. I told her, I had been in the hospital, then when I got out to recuperate I had spent days on the phone taking care of business with my new home, my short-term disability, and the insurance company. "I am supposed to be recuperating. You'd think it would be less stressful!" 

Then, finally, praise God! My short-term disability claim was approved. I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders. And, I finally received my check in the mail from my job. I praised God! Together, they were enough to get me through until I could receive my first paycheck after returning to work, which the doctor had signed a release for me to do. I would return to work again on November 1, giving me a couple more weeks to recuperate. 

I had one more gallstone that had eluded the surgery that was still in my body. But, it didn't require any extra time. I would have it removed on October 29 as an outpatient, and then I would be home free! Life would be normal again!

On my way to the bank to deposit my leave check, I praised God. I decided to celebrate. I wanted to do so by taking Jesus with me to eat. 

Matthew 25:40

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

I decided to go to the local homeless shelter, Randy Sams Homeless Shelter, and pick up someone to go eat at a Chinese buffet with me. When I got there, I told the guy at the desk what I was doing and why, and asked him to "Please choose someone for me who needs a blessing today, and needs to be encouraged."

They gave me Tennie. 

Tennie and her husband were estranged. He was emotionally and verbally abusive. Neither of them believed in divorce, but there is nothing in the Bible that says you have to live with an abusive spouse.. So, they separated.​

It has been many months since Tennie heard from her estranged husband after the last bad words he had to say to her that left her in tears, asking God, "Why is this happening?"

But, God is our vengeance.

Romans 12:19
“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” 

Tennie recently got out of the hospital. She only had Randy Sam's homeless shelter as her home. No job, no money, except a small social security check she was already getting that wasn't enough to get her own place.

A few days before, however, God showed up.

She received a letter in the mail from Social Security Administration. They told her that her husband had died. He left a sizeable pension in social security for her to claim. She will be receiving enough to well take care of all her needs, including enough for her to leave Randy Sams.

I went there hoping to be a blessing. I told her my testimony. She told me hers. She thanked me, and told me that it was, indeed a blessing today to spend time with me.

I wasn't expecting someone like her who had already been so blessed, but I feel now like God has used me to give that extra little "umph" to her in encouragement, and to let her know that He has her back, and it is HIM she should keep her focus on. 

We both had something to celebrate, so we celebrated together. 

She asked me what I saw in her future. I told her "I am not a prophet. But, I will say this: God's will, done God's way, will never lack God's resources." It made her smile.

Matthew 6

28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 

29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 

30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 

I went there to be a blessing. I was the one who was blessed.

And, I made a new friend.


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