Faith or Coincidence?

 

While I do not often discuss religion here, I have not hidden my faith in God.   In fact, I am a practicing Roman Catholic.  I was baptized and raised as such but fell away from the Church a few times in my life. 

I consider those times as lost, but the beauty of Christianity is that you are always welcomed back.  Everyone, even non-believers, is familiar with the story of the “Prodigal Son”, right?

That’s me! 

I’d like to tell you of an experience I had recently.   I don’t expect everyone to believe me.  I suppose a non-believer could say it was all coincidence, but looking through the eyes of faith, I don’t see how.  If faith is a choice, I choose to believe.

I have made the story a bit shorter, but the facts are all there. Its all true.

I awoke in the wee hours of the morning, feeling like there was a butterfly in my chest.  I recognized the sensation from a previous bout of AFIB—atrial fibrillation, a sort of “short circuit” in one’s heart that causes it to beat out of sync.  The condition in and of itself is not fatal, but it can increase the chance of a stroke greatly.  My last bout of it had been a few years before, so, you can imagine, it took me completely by surprise.  No telling what tripped it, but in the past, it had stopped all on its own in a short while.

This had been going on for over eight hours when I had my wife take me to the ER.  They started an IV medication and shipped me off by ambulance to the hospital where my cardiologist (who released me over three years ago) was on staff.  I was informed that if the AFIB did not stop by morning, that they would sedate me and use an electric current to shock my heart back into a normal rhythm.

Not a prospect that engenders calm reflection.

So, I tried to sleep, as I was exhausted.  It’s a bit hard to sleep when there are butterflies fliting around in one’s chest, and, as anyone who has ever spent the night in a hospital will tell you, there is a strict policy in most hospitals that patients are not permitted to sleep.

I tried to read. No go.  Television is a wasteland in any circumstances. 

I was frightened.

So, I prayed.  As St Paul said, “Unceasingly.”

Sometime during the two hours that I actually slept, my heart quit its boogie and returned to a nice, normal sinus rhythm.  It was about 5 AM when a young woman woke me to take my vitals.  Everything was normal.  I asked the question that was most on my mind because I really couldn’t tell.

“What does my EKG look like?”

“From what I saw when I checked, it was nice and normal.  I even got one of the more experienced nurses to take a look, and they said the same. You’re fine.”

I teared up; my prayers had obviously been answered.  You can attribute it to the IV drugs if you wish, but I’d ask you to read on.

About an hour later, my “nurse for the day” came in, introduced herself, and told me that the cardiologist is an early bird who likes to see patients early, so he would be in to fill me in.  He had ordered an echo cardiogram, which they did quite early.  So, when he came in, he had hours and hours’ worth of EKG, blood work and a sonogram of my heart to check out. 

I told the nurse that I had not eaten since 5 the previous evening.  One of the things I prayed for in my fear was something to eat, as I was really hungry.   She said that I was a bit late for breakfast, but that she would call and ask for breakfast for me, since the doctor had said that it was OK to feed me, that the sedation and the electric shock were not on my agenda any longer. She said that it might take a while, so she offered to rustle up something for me in the meantime. I said that some toast, juice, and coffee would be great.  She brought it to me just as the cardiologist came to see me.   

And the breakfast tray arrived within a minute.  I asked the cardiologist of he would think me rude if I ate in front of him, he replied that it was his fault that I had not been fed, so it was OK with him! While he explained various things to me, including that my heart was quite strong and otherwise healthy, I ate: 4 slices of toast, a cheese omelet, four small cartons of juice, one of milk, a bowl of cream of wheat cereal and two cups of coffee! 

Told you I was hungry. 

Second prayer answered.

Please read on.

I did not really trust what I was hearing. Was it really over?

And why didn’t they take the IV port out of my arm and disconnect the EKG?  Was something not completely right, so they wanted to monitor me just in case?

I closed my eyes and prayed.  Like the Apostle Thomas (where the expression “doubting Thomas” originated), I needed to see. It wasn’t even a minute after the cardiologist went to get my paperwork in order, when someone knocked on my door.  I asked them to come in.

There stood an older woman in a volunteer smock who introduced herself as a volunteer with the hospital chaplain’s office.  Her list said that I was Roman Catholic, and she asked if I wanted to receive Holy Communion.  It was as if an angel came and smacked me in the head with a two by four.  I completely broke down in tears, and I am not at all ashamed to admit it.  When I had received Communion, and regained most of my composure, we chatted about having missed attending Mass during the pandemic restrictions, and I asked what church she went to.  She told me the name of the church, and it turned out to be a church in our parish grouping.  We were members of the same parish!

Sorry folks, you can believe what you wish, but that is just way too many coincidences. 

I choose to believe that my prayers were answered. 

Even if you do not believe, do yourself a favor, and take a look around you.  There is a lot of crazy out there, but also a lot of beauty.  Keep an open mind about good things that seem like luck. Consider the probability of things happening in just the right order for good to occur.

Maybe, just maybe, there is more to it.

Thanks for reading!