“Great is Thy Faithfulness"

 

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope; because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness…The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him.” *

My husband, Al, was attending a meeting when someone admired the leather hat he was wearing. “Thanks!” he said.  I like this hat! It’s old and beat up, like me!”

Al definitely has an affinity for his outback hat, one that has accompanied him on many adventures and shielded him from the elements. With several visits to doctors, three surgeries and one procedure this summer, I can understand why he’s feeling beat up—like his hat! It has been a challenging summer.

After having a successful shoulder joint replacement, weeks of therapy to gain strength back in his shoulder muscles and the surgical removal of skin cancer on one ear, a blockage of the left carotid artery was discovered.

Rather than opening up the artery by using a stent, the doctor recommended removing the blockage surgically. That required an overnight stay in the hospital after the surgery so that his vital signs could be monitored in case of blood clots or a stroke. I was very glad when the call finally came to go back and see him for a few minutes in the recovery room.

He was alert and awake, but could hardly speak above a whisper. The nurses in the recovery room thought that it was due to his being intubated in order to receive oxygen and that it would improve in a short time.

Later that afternoon, a friend of our family happened to be walking down the hallway when I recognized her and called out her name. She, a speech therapist, came in to visit with us. Upon hearing Al’s whisper, she advised him to see an ENT (ear, nose and throat) doctor if it didn’t improve in a week.

It was the Lord’s timing that she happened to walk by Al’s room, because otherwise he would have waited, expecting his voice to come back, without realizing that he needed to see a specialist. As it turned out, when he did make the appointment a few weeks later, the ENT doctor discovered nerve damage to be the cause, preventing his vocal cords from opening and closing properly.

The doctor told Al that there was a temporary procedure he could do to inject gel into the vocal cords, plumping them up so that they would open and close. This necessitated another trip to the hospital, a different hospital from the previous time and once more I sat in the surgical waiting room, counting the minutes and praying.

Later I went to the store and bought a white board with dry erase markers so that we could communicate while he followed the doctor’s orders…absolutely no talking for two days! That was quite a new experience for us. The house was sure quiet!

While the procedure did not produce the immediate results we were hoping for, it did help. He now speaks above a whisper, but still requires attentive listening on the part of those to whom he is speaking. No more talking to each other from different rooms!

This has been a frustrating time for him however, as he does like to talk and has always enjoyed singing. He will soon start sessions with a speech therapist, not with our friend who works at the hospital, but hopefully with someone who can give him encouragement and pointers on strengthening his voice.

The verses above were written by one of Israel’s prophets, Jeremiah, during a time of sorrow and distress. Jerusalem had been overrun by the Babylonian empire, burned, ransacked and many of its citizens taken away as captives. Jeremiah’s future as well as the future of the nation looked bleak.

 Beat up? Yes! Defeated? No! Jeremiah’s hope was in the Lord, whom he knew loved him and would be with him no matter what happened.

 Does life beat us up? Sometimes yes! But it doesn’t have to beat us down. God is faithful!

“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father, There is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not; As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.”  (Thomas Obadiah Chisholm, 1866-1960)

*Lamentations 3:21-23 NIV