"The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways...."

The Chapel at Stanford, Palo Alto, CA

And so, what do you say when you finally come home after being gone for a year?  What do you think?  What do you do?  Where and how do you begin...a new life?

Last year I left home to go do a summer unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) up in Palo Alto, California at the VA Hospital.  It was a military tour and a training tour to further develop pastoral care skills.  CPE also teaches you to face yourself, your fears, your "stuff" and so forth.  It is a lot of in depth learning.  For me, it was an incredible learning experience on many levels.  And so, in September I moved up to Palo Alto to do a year long Chaplain Residency in CPE.  

Little did I realize that what a patient said as I visited in the psych ward last September would reverberate in my mind over the coming year.  The patient spoke to me and told me God had a message for me.  He said, "Chaplain, God wants you to know this....'the Lord works in mysterious ways'...".   

Now, it would be easy to dismiss, we were in the psych ward.  Easy to agree to, another spiritual platitude if you will.  But I felt something as he spoke.  I nodded to him and we continued our conversation.  

Do you believe that at times God speaks to us through various people and events?

Do we listen?

A couple of weeks later, I noticed a lump on my neck.  Unusual I thought, I was concerned.   I decided to go see a doctor and get it checked.

But I had no doctor, my doctor was in my home city, Phoenix.  So I signed up for my veteran benefits, and made an appointment at the very VA hospital where I worked in Palo Alto.

And as most everyone knows, the government, especially the VA is a huge bureaucracy and does not move very fast.   I had to wait five weeks to get in to see a doctor.  Meanwhile, the lump on my neck quickly grew larger and I became nervous. 

I was bounced around the system and got nowhere fast.  The weeks went by, no one seemed to be in a hurry, no one seemed to take responsibility for my case, no one seemed to be able to give me any answers or even respond to my inquiries, even though the mysterious lump on my neck was double the size it was just a few weeks previous. 

Finally, I decided to see if Stanford Hospital (just two miles away) took my health insurance.  I was in luck, they did.  I made an appointment and got in the next day.  Right away the doctor recognized this needed to be handled quickly, and got me in to see a specialist the very next day over at the Cancer Center.   And in a whirlwind of seeing a handful of other specialist doctors within a few days, I was scheduled for surgery the next week.  My thoracic surgeon assembled his team of other doctors, and suddenly I had more doctors in my life than I ever imagined possible.  

I was scared.  Terrified.  I was told the tumor was probably a malignancy.  And it was not small.  The tumor had destroyed many of my nerves and major blood vessels near my clavicle.  No wonder I was always tense in my neck and shoulders.  I thought it was from working at a computer too much.  No wonder I was so fatigued this past year.  But most horrifying was that they said I was in danger of losing my right arm. 

How could this have happened?  I had always been so healthy and strong all my life.  I ate good food, organic, lots of veggies.  I worked out, jogged, hiked, prayed, meditated, etc.   

My head was spinning. Life had turned upside down.  It was surreal.

And I had surgery, and it was major surgery.  Upon waking in recovery, I first touched my fingers together on my right hand to see if I still had my arm.  Relief, I could feel them!  Oh thank God!  And as I awoke became more conscious, there was my supervisor chaplain from the VA, holding my left hand!

Friends and family showered me with support, prayers and love.  Coworkers too and local church people and my church families from Sedona and Phoenix.   It all really helped especially as I was far from home.  Going through this was more scary than landing in a war zone or landing on the ice runways on the frozen ocean in Antarctica.  It was the scariest thing I have ever gone through.  For I was facing a life threatening illness and possibly, becoming disabled and or, my death.

Over the next few months, I healed from surgery, going for physical therapy and many doctor appointments.  And then, radiation treatments every day for seven weeks.  Going through radiation was very difficult, and very painful.  Nauseous, my throat very sore, difficult to swallow food, and losing my taste for food.  Everything tasted awful.  And I slept like mad, twelve hours a day.  

Rainbow over Stanford Hospital 

I thank God though, I had the best doctors, nurses, technicians and medical team anyone could ever be blessed with.   And this was one of the best hospitals in the country.  And I was two miles from it, Stanford Hospital.  If you are going to get sick, this was the place to be.  

So coincidental, I thought, only a few places in the country treat the kind of very rare cancer I had, and this was one of them. 

Or was it coincidence?   The Lord works in mysterious ways...

The photo above I snapped on my way to my daily radiation treatments, a huge rainbow going into the top of the Standford Hospital.  And not photographed, but the other end of the arc going into the top of the Stanford Cancer Center, the building next to the hospital.

Needless to say, I was unable to work going through all my treatments.  I was on medical leave more over the past year than I worked.  Finally, I resigned from my residency in April.  

Chaplain Team at the 129th Air Rescue Wing!

Interestingly though, I was able to work at my Air National Guard unit two days a month, although it wasn't easy.  They gave me lots of support, and little do they realize it, but they were / are a big part of my life saving and healing process.  Interestingly, they are a Rescue Wing!  The unit was only five miles away from my place in Palo Alto, and brought me on last fall just before I knew I was sick.  A big coincidence too, as they had a Lieutenant Colonel (0-5) chaplain slot open.  I'm a Lt Col, and finding an open Lt Col chaplain slot in a unit that is just 5 miles away from where you live is about as rare as it gets!

But, as we know, the Lord does work in mysterious ways!

In May, two more hospital stays and another surgery, I began to regain my strength, my sense of taste, the nausea went away.... I was on my way to healing.  

How wonderful and amazing it was to taste food again!  To see the colors of the trees and plants, to feel good again!  Music even sounded different!  Everything was more brilliant.  It was like coming to life again, rebirth, resurrection...

The whole year was a year of learning and healing, on so many levels....emotionally, spiritually, physically...

After going through the dark valley, the depths of hell and returning...I am not the same person I was when I left home last year.  Joy, peace, calm.

I have been given such a gift...new life!  

Thanks be to God!

Life is such a gift!   

To life!

And now I am home.