Rehab Russell

 

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Work hard so you can present yourself to God and receive his approval.  Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the word of truth.  2 Timothy 2:15

This verse is my life’s verse.  It chose me, I didn’t choose it.  It was first given to me by my Mom and Dad, written by my mother’s hand as an inscription on the flyleaf of my first Bible.  Later (and continually) that verse showed up in ways too numerous to recount in a short devotional.  Those ways were ambushes to my lazy streak, and gifts of encouragement to my “timid Timothy” ways.  That verse is not my “slogan” – it is my life-saving guide and reminder of the trust Jesus has in me, and that which I must forge on the inside of my character.

We will post more about that next week…which leads me to what’s been going on the past three months, and what’s ahead this week for Rehab Russell…and (perhaps) an encouragement for you.

I’m getting set to receive a Cardioverter-Defibrillator implant tomorrow.  This little gem is a combination of pacemaker (which is supposed to whip my under-performing heart pump into compliance), and a defibrillator (think hospital Emergency Room; think Surgery table with half-a-dozen professionals in scrubs.  One of the docs is holding paddles attached to a charger.  In my musing the paddles are poised over Russell’s chest getting ready to wake-up my ticker and tell him it’s not cool, this decision to call it a day).  The device they’re going to implant in my chest will be a personal hospital ER team and electric chair, all contained in a 6-ounce plastic computer/mini-reactor with twelve sensor leads surrounding my heart muscle which started beating about three-quarters of a century ago.  I keep musing on how loud the little voice will sound coming from within my chest cavity...CLEAR!  And…how, pray tell, did they fit the little doctor man inside that device?  I want to know!  Interesting ride through this life, ain’t it?

For the past few months that ride has been a stationary recumbent bicycle in the rehab unit 40-minutes at a time.  Don’t let the name fool you, “recumbent” doesn’t mean lay-back-nappy-time; it’s more wear-your-bones-to-the-nub-pedaling-for-your-life time.  I’ve logged a couple hundred miles on that thing and never left the hospital’s rehab unit.  One comes to think of it as the HAMSTER OLYMPICS…pedal like a fool…don’t move an inch.

And isn’t it the interesting/challenging times in life that cause you to think a little more deeply about this life?  I know it has been that way with me for the past several months since the doctor told me my heart pumps only 20% of the blood it ought to be pumping.  The deeper thinking you do with such information tells me there isn’t much that stands between me and hearing “CLEAR”!

For You Today

So…if the message isn’t as CLEAR as it could be today, let me CLEAR the debris out and speak CLEARLY.  It shouldn’t take the threat of a room full of medical first-responders to get you connected to God.  That’s something we are all hard-wired to work-on every day, to talk about with Him every waking hour, and keep the hub of your spiritual life from collecting cobwebs.  After all, as Peter the Apostle put it, bring your cares to Him…because He cares for YOU![1]  There is no more important or CLEAR call on your life every day.  Is there?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Russell Brownworth (own work)   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

For other posts on this text see The Making of a Good Servant and Recycled Sermons

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[1] Loose “Brownworth” translation of 1 Peter 5:7