By Ken Freebairn
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
~Jane Austen
"There is something wrong with your heart," the surgeon said. "Your arteries are clogged, and if we don't get blood to your heart you will die." The whole thing seemed surreal, as if they were talking about someone else.
Those words regarding my heart sounded all too familiar, only in the past they had not come from a surgeon but rather from someplace deep within my soul. I had felt for years that there was something wrong with my heart, but I never thought it was cholesterol. I sensed it was something more, something within the depths of my being that had been lost and was screaming out for life.
While lying there in the hospital bed and listening to the conversation, I asked God if there was something more that I could learn from this. Millions of people had gone through what I was now going through, but was there a deeper lesson to all of this? Was there something else?
My thoughts drifted back to my youth, when my heart was filled with awe and joy for life. Back then, each day was a new adventure; but over the years, disappointments, failures and relationships seemed to have sucked the life right out of me. I used to believe, I used to trust, I used to care, but now it was enough just to get up every morning and face a new day. Something was missing and I did not know what it was. Maybe I could use this challenge as a way to examine some deeper issues.
Just as no one ever knew the condition of my physical heart by looking at me from the outside, it was also true with my inner heart, as I had hid my malaise pretty well. If someone got too close I would simply move away to a safer distance and hide behind a mask of jokes and business. At times when I was alone and my mind would quiet down, a small voice would gently give me a nudge and ask me if I wanted to talk about it. "Not tonight," I would answer. "Maybe another time when I am not so tired." Unfortunately, the other time never came. So now here I was, hooked up to an EKG with an entire room full of strangers looking at the very heart that I had tried to hide for so long.
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They were talking about my physical heart but I was thinking about my spiritual one. "So what caused this in the first place?" I asked. "Probably from your lifestyle and diet," the surgeon replied. "Whatever you put into your body as well as the stress you experience will sooner or later affect your heart."
Was that a true statement! If I allow anger, bitterness, fear and worry into my life, it will in turn cause internal distress that will sooner or later affect my physical heart as well as my spiritual heart.
As I lay there before the operation began, I released all the things that had stolen my very life from me. I set them free. I made peace with God and myself and let go of all the things that over the years had clogged my heart. That day, to my amazement, I had not one, but two, major heart surgeries.
It has taken me a lot longer than I thought to recover from the surgery, and at times I can still feel a slight pain as I go through this process of healing. At those times, when I grow discouraged and concerned, I sit quietly, clear my mind and trust the surgeon who said that everything would be fine.
Come to think of it, I have learned to do the same thing when I feel a slight pain deep within my soul. I relax and let those old thoughts pass. Then, I focus on those things that make me grateful for my new heart and this precious gift called life, and trust my divine surgeon with the rest.
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