The Broken Hearted

Reflecting can be heartwarming or heart breaking on any given day. What do you really see when you look at yourself in a mirror? Do you focus on your physical appearance too much? Have you ever looked into your own eyes seeking the image of your soul?
This past June I had an incredible experience with a mirror in a dressing room.
The diagnosis after my May heart Cath was bleak. My LAD had all the stents it could hold and the anticipation of its closure was somewhat dim.
During a training session my husband was holding, he met a nurse in his class whose mother had a similar heart condition to mine. She suggested we try a treatment called EECP. It is a compression therapy to try and grow tiny veins on the heart into blood flowing arteries.
We agreed that I should at least try. My Cardiologist set met up with another colleague of his and I had just come from my second treatment.
One of my Sisters, Shirley and my brother in law, Gary were visiting us from Texas while Wayne was, you guessed it, out of town, working.
Upon the suggestion of the nurse that I get a seamless pant to avoid bruising, we went to a local department store. We girls got the Family dressing room to try on a couple of things while my brother in law cruised the men's department.
Immediately I felt weak and began to struggle. I'll just take a nitro and watch you try on, I say.
Shirley, having been down her own health journey wasn't taking any chances. Shirley changed out of the blouse she was trying on and stepped out to find Gary. It took her much needed help to change back into my pants, then sit back down on the bench. That's when I felt the oncoming train push me to the wall and hold me there. Suddenly I was frozen. I could not speak or move a muscle. I'm looking in that floor to ceiling mirror and I see myself as white as the hair on my head. Again, I try to will my head from the wall but I cannot move. I sense Shirley in and then out of the room.
Am I having a stroke? Am I dead! Am I going to watch myself go to Heaven? I'm going to be with God. I feel totally peaceful but in question. So this was the day and place? My heart must not have liked the EECP treatment? I'm thinking? Suddenly, I feel my hand. I move my head, I look down and there is my tiny bottle of nitro. Shirley re-enters the dressing room. Oh, she says, I know what she is thinking. She is as surprised as I am that I'm alive. "Take two" she says while I’m anxiously pouring the pills into my hand. I quickly get them under my tongue. They work their little miracle and I say let's go.
I know that the nitro can't last too long and I've completely given over to the idea that this is the last day of this eight year journey. I call Wayne and he immediately begins praying for me. We tell each other how much we love each other and somehow with my sister’s guidance and his prayer, I make it out the front door to a waiting car. Gary heads to downtown West Palm. He and Shirley are amazingly calm but they have experienced more than their fair share of medical emergencies and know that calm is the only way to walk thru it. They are praying out loud and I think Shirley is calling our other siblings. Our family and closest friend all believe in the power of prayer and that God heals. These are not the people who will tell you they "will pray," these are the people "who do." These are the soldiers who have cried out on their knees for eight years for our God to sustain me. I'm thinking, this time his mind is made up and I have used up the number of my days. Wayne and I laid in each other's arms all night, sleeping very little, waiting for me to fall asleep for the last time on this earth. When I look back now, the voices of all four Cardiologist resonates. Your LAD will close.

In my mind, it was as though, God reached down his mighty hand and held me perfectly still the moment the LAD began to close. The blood flow stopped, backed up from the big river and spread into the tiny streams. He then let go and I lived! "Be still and know that I am God" became my personal scripture. I can only presumed that it closed that day because no one dares to go inside and look.
If he needs you to be still while he fixes you, don't doubt that he can physically do it!
The reflection in that dressing room mirror will be forever painted in my mind but more importantly the image wasn't what mattered at that moment.
It was the peace I felt about my destiny that resonates in my soul.
Take a moment with me here.
Look in a mirror. What do you see? If your life were ending at this moment, what would be the expression on your face? Would you like what you see?
I pray so! ❤