While I am a man of faith, I am also a reasonable man with rational concerns.  And I was concerned.  The last time I had this procedure, things were less than perfect.  I needed a little heavenly reassurance.

And, as some of you may also remember, the medical Nazis required me to bring a CPAP with me.  So for the last several days, I was trying to get adjusted to the silly thing.  And so I began Tuesday night already tired from my many confrontations with the device in the nights preceding.

I was sleeping quietly Tuesday until roughly midnight, when I suddenly developed a maddening and irrepressible itch dead center in the middle of my back.  Wiggling didn’t help and my arms are to short to reach.  So I had to get up and use the back scratcher.

And then I heard it.  A blood curdling electrical hiss.  Repeatedly.   It was like Dr. Frankenstein’s lab was right on our back porch.  I half expected to hear the cry of “It’s Aliiiiiiiive!!”  I couldn’t really see anything, but my son James could.  A power box in our back yard, at the foot of the transformer pole, was shorting out.  Electricity was arcing (loudly) behind the bushes, causing them to smoke.  (If we hadn’t had the rain, the smoke would have been flames.)  When I did finally see it, the bush had an eerie glow behind it.

We called the fire department and OG&E.  When the smoke cleared (literally) we realized that God had awakened me so we could get the fire trucks out.  That alone was a comforting affirmation of God’s protection.  But the real miracle was yet to happen.

Wednesday morning I went into the operating room at 10:40.  Prior to that, lots of prayers went up from my pre-op room.  With and for the doctor, and the attending nurses, and the gas guys, and me.

During the procedure, a problem developed.  One of the stents encountered an obstruction.  (Remember, my ureters are like pretzels.)  Then, suddenly, the stent moved as if it were being sucked up right to the kidney.  It was remarkable enough that the nurses remarked.  The doctor informed them that it wasn’t his doing.  It was an example of Amazing, greasing, Grace.

But there’s more.

When my old stents were removed, there were no crystalline deposits.  It has always been the buld up of those deposits that required the many replacements.  So now, we’ved moved to a 10 month span between replacements.  First it was six months.  Then it was nine.  Now it’s ten.

God’s protection and Grace had extended from the electrical fire right into the operating room.

And for me, the symbol of all of it has been that image of the bush.

Even with all our pastors and prophets and popes……..even in the era of instant messaging………..God still uses that Gold Standard of heavenly communicaion – the burning bush.

Praise His Name Forever.