Monday, September 10, 2007

my grandpa...



this is my grandpa. he is a really special man and as you can tell he is quite the goof ball. i love my grandpa and i think he has the best stories. i don't think many people take the time to listen to his stories, but i love them. i think that is why we have such a special relationship. he loves to tell his stories and i love to listen to them. but this story isn't from him, it's about him.

its been impressed upon me to write things down, to remember the God moments. i had a very cool and big God moment that involved my grandpa.

the summer before my freshman year of college i went on a retreat with some of my best friends. it was a silence/solitude/fasting retreat and it was hard! but so good. this retreat really brought me to a place where the only voice i was hearing was the Lord's. when we had finished our retreat and were heading home i was checking my voice messages and there were several from different family members and family friends who were trying desperately to get a hold of me. after making a few phone calls i got in touch with my grandma who informed me that my grandpa had had an aortic aneurism rupture and that he wasn't going to make it. i needed to get home right away in order to say goodbye. i was devistated to say the least. my grandpa is one of my favorite people in the whole world. i wasn't ready to say goodbye. as we drove home in silence, i heard this voice as clear as day. it said "your grandpa is going to live, he's going to become a Christian through it all, and you'll get to witness to nurses, doctors, and your family through it all" as soon as i heard that voice i knew it was the Lord and a peace that i can't even begin to explain washed over me. we made it home and i headed to the hospital right away. it was so strange to walk into a place of death, where everyone is waiting for it, knowing that only life will come from this. i could already see the Lord working. for one, my grandpa had been on his way to his first business trip ever. he'd never left the family before. he was just getting onto the shuttle at the airport when the rupture occured. had he been driving, he would have died, had he been in the plane, he would have died, had he been at home, he probably would have died, had he been alone in the hotel room, he would have died. pretty much the only place he could have been was right there. not only that, but he was also 10 minutes from the best hospital in wisconsin. when he arrived at the er, the doctor that was supposed to be on duty hadn't come it, so this other doctor who had just finished his shift decided to stick around and fill in... for the first time in 15 years. this doctor just happened to have spent the last several years researching aneurisms. he knew the second my grandpa was rolled into the er what was wrong with him, and he had him in surgery within 45 minutes. after giving him something like 72 units of blood and doing surgery, they put him in the icu and gave him 0% chance of survival. for the next 6 weeks we spent almost every day at the hospital with the family, waiting for something to happen. i tried to tell everyone that he was going to make it, but no one but my grandma really believed me. we put an angel pin on his gown and told the nurses and doctors we believed God was going to do a miracle. after 6 weeks of nothing, my grandpa suddenly woke up from his coma! although he had a long recovery process to go, this was more than any expected! suddenly, all the times that i said i believed God was going to heal him, seemed to make sense to people. the doctor put up a sign in my grandpa's room that said "i now believe God does miracles". he also made an order that the angel pin was not to be removed from my grandpa's gown. slowly but surely my grandpa got better every day. not only did he improve physically, but the Lord used this to heal his heart and bring him back into His family. apparently God isn't done with my grandpa yet, and i for one sure am glad.

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