By Paula Mowery
On Wednesday, September 30th, my husband reminded me of a ten year anniversary. No, it wasn’t our wedding anniversary. That’s twenty-six years this year.
Ten years ago on that Wednesday my husband had heart valve replacement surgery. His faulty valve was replaced by a diamond titanium version that clicks each time his heart beats.
I will never forget the surgeon speaking to us after the surgery in the waiting room. He shook his head and said, “I don’t know how he was still going. His heart had worked so hard it was the size of a football. But he did fine and you can see him pretty soon.”
Later we were told that if he had experienced any kind of episode, help probably wouldn’t have arrived in time to save him. That’s comforting for a wife who watched her husband get in the pulpit every week and give it his all.
This experience has proven to me that God doesn’t waste any experience. My husband has a different perspective now as he visits those in the hospital. He has been able to specifically encourage other men who have undergone his same surgery.
Though the constant clicking is something he has had to learn to live with, I am glad that when it becomes really quiet, I can hear it. Because it clicks, I still have my husband here with me.
I feared losing him when I discovered everything that would happen during the surgery. What scared me most was the fact that they would stop his heart and then have to start it beating again after replacing the valve. Someone was in charge of keeping his body alive while his heart was still. We later found out that the man who did this asked for prayer for my husband that night at his church, not knowing we had friends there. Is that God, or what?
God let me know during this that my hubby would live. This surgery was necessary to free my husband to minister. It was as if God said that this heart condition had him reigned back and now he would be released.
God held true to the promise. My husband is a senior pastor and he ministers at about ninety-five miles per hour.
Sometimes we don’t know why something happens, but we must always be open to what God will reveal to us. He really does know what is best for us, and He is capable of working good from any situation.
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Paula Mowery is an award winning, published author, acquisitions editor, and speaker. Her new release, For Our Good, can be purchased by clicking on the link below.
Her first two published works were The Blessing Seer and Be The Blessing from Pelican Book Group. Both are women’s fiction, and their themes have been the topics of speaking engagements. Be The Blessing won the Selah Award in 2014 in the novella category. In November of 2013, her first romance released in the anthology, Brave New Century, from Prism Book Group. This book went to number five on Amazon’s bestseller category, historical Christian romance. Legacy and Love was her first solo romance and was a finalist in the Carolyn Readers Choice Awards in 2015.
Reviewers of her writing characterize it as “thundering with emotion.” Her articles have appeared in Woman’s World, The Christian Online Magazine, and the multi-author devotional blog, Full Flavored Living. She wrote a section for Join the Insanity by Rhonda Rhea. She has devotionals included in several collaborative books.
As an acquisitions editor for Prism Book Group, Paula particularly looks for romance stories with Christian values at its core. She’s especially attracted to those manuscripts that leave the reader mulling over the story long after turning the last page.
Having been an avid reader of Christian fiction, she now puts that love to use by writing book reviews. She is a member of ACFW and is on the author interview team. She was a member of the 2014 and 2015 Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference faculty.
Paula is a pastor’s wife and mom to a college student. She homeschooled her daughter through all twelve years, and they both lived to tell about it. Before educating her daughter at home, she was an English teacher in public school.
You can follow Paula at www.facebook.com/pages/Paula-Mowery/175869562589187. Learn more about Paula at her blog at www.paulamowery.blogspot.com or enjoy her monthly columns on www.christianonlinemagazine.com.
