Facing Life’s Giants…

I recently heard a quote:  “When God wanted to make David a king, he didn’t hand him a crown; he gave him Goliath". The Lord gives us challenges in life to help us grow and become the person he knows we will be. What I didn’t know in our story was how big our Goliath would be. The Bible speaks of him being a Giant, as tall as 9’ 9”. This was a massive individual. This was the human manifestation of some of the more gigantic things we will all face as Christians.  Those giants are all out there, and we all face them. Remember that when looking at someone’s Facebook or listening to them tell stories everyday. No one has a perfect life, but we like to show the world the good and hide our giants. To me, that is always a foreign idea, as it is the giants in our lives that we need to face together. Sharing helps us cast our burdens out and support each other. I mean, I am writing this story for a reason.

​When we last spoke, I was telling you that my wife had her surgery, and something felt wrong. That night, she had a bunch more pain and said she felt something running down her leg. In the future, we would come to realize that this is how nerve pain can feel sometimes, but something was definitely wrong.  We made an appointment the next day, with the fear that she had a blood clot. Her mother had an issue with those in the past, so we figured we needed to get this check out. When getting to the doctor’s office and watching them cut off her cast, my heart sank as I saw the damage her foot had taken in the surgery. Some of you would just consider staples and stitches as normal, not me. I get weak in the knees when we are looking at such things, but here I was staring at one of the more gruesome surgical wounds I have ever seen. I couldn’t imagine the pain she must have been in. I, in that moment, realized that she had been putting up with so much, and there I was complaining that I was tired from having to get up in the night to help her to the bathroom. I wouldn’t complain from that point.

The nurse was very nice, but the look on her face at one point told me that something was wrong. She said everything was fine with words, but her face told a different story. She invited a doctor into the room, not our doctor, as this was an unscheduled visit and he was not available. This doctor was supposedly good and seemed very confident. After all this, I have learned to question people’s confidence. I want you to be confident without a huge ego.

The doctor came into the room and said everything looked good, but that a stitch or two had come loose. He told the nurse that, since my wife had an appointment in two days, some butterfly strips should be ok to hold everything in place. To me, the doctor said she was ok, so I was ok.  She would have her cast removed in two days, and all would return to some normalcy.  

​Just to confirm there was no blood clotting issue, they did an ultrasound. When we confirmed there was no issue, my wife teared up, knowing she was going to be ok.  

But…..

This would not be a Goliath with a simple ending. It was in those two days that the giant would wage his first attack. It was in those moments that the enemy saw what he wanted to do, and it was in those two days that the trajectory of our lives would change.

Talk again soon…..