"They were astonished"

If you are a Facebook friend you are aware that Dennis was in the hospital from Wednesday until yesterday afternoon. Long story short: I took him to the ER in Pryor on Wednesday morning. He was having chest pains, dizziness, headache and just a general bad feeling. They ran tests there-EKG (normal), chest xray (normal), CT of the head (normal) and blood work (elevated heart enzymes which evidently can indicate heart attack/damage). They called for transport to a Tulsa hospital-St. John. Once there they admitted him to the cardiac floor. They started another round of blood work and scheduled a cardiac stress test for Thursday morning. Three blood draws indicated no elevated heart enzymes. However, the stress test showed some abnormalities. So began the long wait and see process while the cardiologists decided what to do next. On Thursday evening it was decided that they would do a CT angio scan instead of jumping right to the heart cath. That was scheduled for Friday morning. That was done and the cardiologist (he saw four cardiologists in total) reviewed it and explained the results to Dennis. There was no evidence of heart attack, no blockage, no tumor, no irregularities of any kind. His explanation was a false positive on the stress test.....it happens.

I have thought about this a lot as people have asked "well, why did he have the pain and this episode if everything is normal? What do they say about it?". I have offered the answer we were given - "false positive" but have decided that just isn't adequate.

As soon as people knew Dennis was in the hospital they began to pray. Technology is such now that people all across the country were praying for him within hours. What a comfort. We pray for God to intervene and to heal and to restore.....then keep asking why and what and how when He does. It reminded me of the story from Acts 12.

Peter was in prison. Herod had him arrested because of his faith. The church was gathered and praying for him. The Lord sent an angel to bust him out of prison. He walked right past the guards without detection. HE recognized how his escape happened: "Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.”

He went to the house of Mary where people were assembled praying for him. He knocked on the door. A young servant girl came to the door. She recognized his voice without opening the door and ran back to tell the others. They told her she was crazy. When she insisted they said it must be his angel. But, Peter kept on knocking and when they opened it they were astonished.

Isn't that just like us? We pray for God to heal and restore and when He does we try to explain it away or we are astonished. Weren't they praying for that very thing?

So, my new answer to what and why and how in the matter of Dennis' hospitalization is answered prayer. Pure and simple.

Our God is an awesome God.