A few weeks ago, during one of my post-shot visits with my cousins Al
& Bonnie, the discussion landed on my impending transplant procedure. As we discussed the upcoming hospital
duration, Al mentioned that the 40 days and 40 nights reminded him of the story
of Noah’s Ark. I told him that we
must have like minds because I had just recently made that same correlation and
was already thinking through the many similarities.
Noah spent time building and preparing the ark to God’s
specifications. He collected the
animals by pairs and fowls by sevens and herded them into the boat. He gathered his family and reached out
to others around him. When God
said it was time, the door to the ark was closed and Noah and company were
tucked away inside to ride out the storm.
Forty days and forty nights of non-stop rain. You can imagine that after a couple weeks with that many
animals, it had to begin to smell!
:) “And the waters
prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.” I can only imagine Noah’s
excitement when the dove he sent to find land came back with the olive branch. It was still a few more months before they could
exit the ark onto dry land. When
they did, Noah built an altar of thanks and dedication to the Lord.
My doctors have spent time preparing my body for the
transplant. Campath reduced the
leukemia so that my counts would meet the specifications needed to begin the
transplant process. We have
collected the things I will need during my stay. We have gathered our family for some final hugs and reached
out to friends around us. It is
now almost time to enter my ark and begin the 40 days and nights of
storms. Some of it is going to
stink. And there will be another
hundred days of care and close observation before we see dry land. But just as Noah had faith in God, so
do we. Noah had never even
experienced rain, much less a flood.
He didn’t know what to expect.
But he knew God. While we
have read and researched as much as we could, we still do not know with all
certainty what to expect. Every
transplant is unique. Every body
responds differently. But we walk
forward knowing that God is in control. And when we emerge safely from this ark, we too will offer our thanks to our Lord.
Whatever happens, weeks…even months on the ark has got to be
better than three days and nights inside the belly of a whale! :)
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