The clearest answer I've ever received to a prayer happened in relation to my kidney donation. Here's how it happened.
After I qualified to become a kidney donor, Camille and I became part of a chain that had 9 donors and 9 recipients. The surgeries were all scheduled to happen within a few days of each other starting May 24. But then Camille got a cold. They decided she was too sick and sent us home. I felt relieved we had a few more weeks to prepare.
Our son David was coming home from his mission on May 31st and this was an event I did not want to miss. He had been gone for more than 2 years and we were so excited to see him and celebrate the successful completion of his mission.
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| Dropping off David at the MTC |
So I was very unhappy to get a phone call the next afternoon from the transplant team. They had decided to go ahead with all the other donations and transplants and do Camille's later. They wanted me to donate my kidney on the exact day David was coming home--May 31st.
I was SO FRUSTRATED! I was completely willing to donate on any other day. My donor advocate told me that sometimes you have to miss important events in your children's lives, like soccer games. She obviously didn't get it--this was definitely not the equivalent of a soccer game. After the phone call, I angrily argued with the transplant team in my head for a couple of hours telling them how important this was to me.
Finally, I decided that I was going to tell them I couldn't donate on that day. What was so hard about delaying it another day or two? Then I decided to pray about it. This decision would affect a lot of people. I wanted a confirmation that this was the right thing to do and get a feeling of peace.
That's not what happened. The entire time I was praying about changing the date of the surgery, the word NO kept coming into my mind. As in NO, I should not delay the surgery. NO, I should not do what I wanted to do. It was not an audible voice but it felt like a really loud thought, one I couldn't miss.
It was definitely not the answer I wanted, but it was a very easy answer to recognize. I needed to give up what I wanted for what God wanted. So the next day, I told them I would do it on May 31st. It was a lot easier knowing that was what God wanted me to do.
Early on the morning of May 31st, Scott and I drove to the University of Utah hospital and I donated my kidney. I had this secret very unrealistic hope that maybe I would recover so quickly that I could go to the airport that night with the rest of the family! After surgery, it became obvious there was no way that was going to happen. Meanwhile my kidney was flown to New Jersey and transplanted in my recipient.
That night, after Scott picked up David at the airport, they came to see me at the hospital. They showed up at the exact moment I was feeling maximum pain from some air that had been pumped into my abdomen during the surgery and was reflecting in my shoulder. I was literally writhing in pain. Fortunately they located a heating pad and that helped a lot.
Scott brought David up the next day to spend some time with me when I was feeling better and we had a few good visits during my hospital stay of several days talking about his mission. And I recovered enough to go to church not quite 2 weeks later to hear his homecoming talk.
That decision actually turned out really well for our family. During my surgery and recovery, Scott was there with me instead of needing to be with Camille. By the time Camille got her transplant on June 14, I was feeling better and I was able to give her the support she needed in the hospital. Scott was even able to go on the Scout bike trip planned that he was in charge of and had been planning for months, a few days after Camille's transplant. It all worked out. And I learned to trust God more.
What if God's way is always better even if we don't like it at first? Sometimes I wonder if there have been other times I should have asked God what his opinion was, but I didn't. Maybe He has an opinion more often than I realize and I just need to ask. I don't want to meet God at the end of my life and find out I could have saved myself a lot of pain if only I had found out what He wanted me to do.
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