I’m waiting in the silence once again. My last surgery was very difficult and long. My doctor doesn’t want me to talk until I see her again, a week post operation. It feels like a reoccurring case of DeJa’Vu. Writing on the board. Trying not to forget. I accidentally talked in the hospital the morning after my surgery. The nurse woke me from the dead of sleep to give me an antibiotic, and I asked him if I should take anti-nausea medicine first. I caught myself and he just stared at me. Then he finally said that I scared him to death because he thought I wasn’t able to speak not that I wasn’t allowed to speak. I guess my “Can’t Speak” sign wasn’t very clear.
Everything about this surgery feels different. The surgery itself was much more invasive, but I didn’t panic like last time. It helped that they gave me every medication available to calm me, so much so that my doctor had to keep waking me up. Something about this surgery feels like it’s the last one. When I talk on Thursday, we’ll know for sure if it was a success, but I’m not anxious. God has gotten me this far; I know He won’t leave me now. I know we’ll make it through whatever results we find. I know He takes care of His own. I’ve watched Him do it. I’ve experienced it.
The greatest proof and benefit of freedom is the knowing, really knowing soul deep, bone deep, that I am His. It’s a thick, almost touchable, balm that covers everything. Every fiber, every crevice. All the past. All the present. All that will be. When it takes over, it runs through the veins, pounds the heart, and inflates the lungs with new life. It drips generously from calloused fingertips and flows refreshingly down the thirsty throat. It changes the lens of the eyes and the drum of the ear to really see and really hear. It anoints one’s root system and waters it through and through. It infuses everything. It touches everything and it feels good.
I get the distinct feeling that much of this season has been the process of God answering prayers that I’ve prayed. The greater ones. The deep ones. The ones for freedom. The ones for victory. The ones for my seed. It hasn’t looked anything like what I’d think answered prayers would look, but I feel like something new has popped through the soil, something green and beautiful. Something liberated. I feel a transition. I feel a breakthrough coming.