Thoughts from Room 405A

It’s been a different 3 weeks. Kay and I have been in Mesquite, Texas helping with my dad’s recovery from knee replacement surgery. He was released from the hospital and has completed 2 weeks of a 3 week stay in the rehab facility.

I stay with him at nights. My mother stays with him during the days. Kay keeps the house going, the food flowing, and the encouragement growing.

You see, the combination of anesthesia and the confusing environment of hospital sights and sounds and a multitude of medical personnel coming through every little while causes my dad to experience extreme confusion and disorientation. He becomes unable to comprehend and respond quickly. He doesn’t know where he is or why he’s there.

Hey, it happens to me sometimes when I wake up in a hotel room in some country with different sounds and strange smells coming in the window. I’m disoriented. Where am I? Why am I here? What time is it? And my mind is 20 years younger and not affected by Alzheimer’s and aphasia.

It has also been a rich time of solitude. Time to think. Time to pray. Time to ponder. Time to appreciate my mom and my dad, their lifestyles which profoundly affected mine. Their love for my wife, my kids, my grandkids. Their willingness to see their firstborn, college-educated son invest his life in fulltime service of Christ. Their selfless giving to their church, their friends, the cause of Christ, even to strangers we met on summer vacations.

My dad is the essence of the law of sowing and reaping:

You shall reap.
You shall reap what you sow.
You shall reap more than you sow.

My dad is the essence of Luke 6:38:

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Giving. Giving generously. Giving with a big heart and a big bucket.

And he is reaping. He wins the hearts of physical therapists and medical professionals wherever he goes. He’s winsome. Uncomplaining. Positive. Quietly and graciously content. As a result, medical professionals go overboard in helping him. They want to check up on him, to provide assistance to him.

A spirit of service and gratitude and thankfulness, of caring for others, lived out for a lifetime. Now he is reaping. He is reaping multitudes of people checking on him, calling him, visiting him in the rehab. Church members. Family members. People who live down the street and across the fence next door. He’s reaping winsome attitudes from medical professionals.

And he’s reaping admiration from a son whose life is forever impacted by his model of faithfulness over a lifetime, love that has no limits, service that does not count the cost. When I grow up, I want to be like my daddy.