But that's not what I intended to talk about in this post. In my conversation with the above-mentioned friend, we briefly talked about our struggle with the term "blessed." And the idea that God is in control of everything, so we are never just lucky, always blessed. I don't buy that. I can't accept that my fortune makes me more or less blessed by God than someone else. And as I am nearing the 4-year-anniversary mark for some particularly good fortune, I've been thinking about that a lot.
Almost exactly four years ago, it was discovered that I have a dime-sized hole in my heart. An Atrial Septal Defect, to be specific. It's something I was born with, but it wasn't discovered until my ob/gyn heard a heart murmur (for the first time since I was a small child) and sent me off to a cardiologist to get it checked out. The cardiologist (who happened to be the head of Duke cardiology - lucky?) listened to the murmur, thought there was nothing to it and almost sent me home. But he decided to order an echo test, just in case. And so it was discovered that I have this hole, and that even though I had no symptoms at that point, my heart had already started to deform from it. Eventually, probably around the age of 40, I would've started to have congestive heart failure. But instead, within a few days I was in the hospital with one of the best doctors in the world for this particular condition, having an amplatzer device placed over that hole using only a catheter (not open-heart surgery), which was a relatively new and rare procedure that's only done a few places. And now my heart is fine, and should always be fine (at least, related to that hole). But I still have that heart murmur. It's completely unrelated to the hole.
Usually, when I end this story, I say something like, "I am very, very lucky...or blessed." And if I don't add that "or blessed" at the end, the listener will often do it for me. But I have a hard time with that. I'm not sure I really want to use that word. I'm afraid it implies something I don't mean.
There are many points in my hole-in-the-heart narrative at which the story could've taken a very different turn. The first cardio could've sent me home without the echo test. The ob/gyn could've missed the murmur (the cardio was actually surprised that she heard such a faint murmur), or decided not to refer me on. I could've been living in an area without a top-notch hospital. I could've been one of the many young Americans without insurance (which means I never would've even seen the cardiologist, much less had the expensive test, I'm sure). I could've been born in a country without such advanced testing and surgical equipment. I could've, I could've, I could've.... I wasn't, but I could've.
And for many others, their stories do take different turns than mine. They were born in another country; they don't have insurance; they see a doctor (maybe even the same doctor) who makes a different decision on that particular day; they have no symptoms at all so there's no reason to get any test. And so their condition is not diagnosed until there's major heart damage, if it's diagnosed at all. Does that mean they're less blessed than me? That God cares more for me than for them? Or that God saved me for some particular purpose, but their purpose wasn't great enough to warrant saving?
My holey heart cries out No, No, No! That can't be right. I am not more worthy or more loved. In some ways, I am just lucky.
So where is God in all this? It's so tricky to try to define God's work. I don't really know exactly how God works in the world, but I believe it's more relational than puppet-master-y. There's too much human error in the world for me to believe God's controling it all. But I do believe God's Spirit is at work in and among us. I believe God was nudging those doctors to make those decisions. And nudging me to take the murmur seriously, even though the murmur turned out to be nothing. But I also believe we could've made different decisions on those days. We could've been distracted or worried or excited about something else and completely missed those nudges. And my life would've turned out very differently. But that doesn't mean God would've cared for me any less, or been less involved in my life. I believe God would still have been nudging, hoping, pushing, working in my life to make it the best life it could possibly be. As I believe God does for us all.
My friend says she has a sermon written in her head about being lucky. I hope I get to hear it someday, as I'm having a hard time coming up with good words for this struggle. But for now, I think that rather than saying I'm "very, very lucky...or blessed," I'll say, "I'm very, very lucky AND blessed."
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