Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Over-functioner that I was, I decided I would have the a superlative sabbatical. I booked leadership conferences at Bexley-Seabury, academic coursework at two universities, a thesis-writing-boot-camp, three full vacations, and several speaking engagements. Those who saw my sabbatical schedule would joke, “Great, but when are you going to rest?” Maybe I thought I didn't need it.

Sabbatical went well enough at the beginning. I got to see my parents and help my mom downsize. Then I got word of some family tragedies and had to return for a funeral. During the one week that I had nothing else booked, I decided to remodel our guest bathroom as a surprise for my wife who was visiting her family. She was “surprised” to return to a half-destroyed bathroom and a very sick husband.

I felt pretty bad pretty quick. I thought this was the standard summer sinus infection and would pass with the usual course of antibiotics. Nope.

To make a very long story short, I was admitted to the Cardiac Care Unit of our local hospital with pneumonia and an infection of the heart lining, where I stayed for four days on heavy-duty intravenous antibiotics. I went down hard. A cardiologist came in and started to talk about options. If the antibiotics didn't work, we would have to talk transplant. Wait. What!?! Heart transplant!?! I'm thirty-five and still in decent shape! This was not part of my sabbatical agenda. Then the cardiologist gave me fodder for preaching, pastoral care and blog posts I will use the rest of my career: “The heart has no defenses of its own.” Don't take this as medical advice, but the heart is covered in a sack that can fend of all kinds of nasty stuff. Once those defenses are beaten, there is nothing else to protect the heart.

God worked through the prayers of many and through my earnest bargaining and the antibiotics did their job. There was no need to talk any further about a transplant. Apparently I do still have work to do on the planet. But, I did have to stay in bed for essentially the next two months; slowly, slowly regaining my strength. I had all these plans for sabbatical and God said, “rest with me.” Guess who won?

I share all of this, because I learned a whole lot by going through a situation I would not wish on anyone. Even before this happened the sabbatical taught me that I was doing too much. Now I am doing less; doing what I can. Proceeding slowly. But this is not one of those “What could you give up?” kind of blog posts. Because here's what I really learned...

Something happened in that hospital. Yes, I was on some heavy drugs but that wasn't it. College wasn't so long ago: I remember what that feeling and that wasn't it at all. Sometime after my wife was asked to leave so I could rest, and my bishop and former rector had come to say prayer with me, I had another visitor. In the middle of the night, I began to feel the overwhelming presence of love in the room. I became aware that I was being bathed in the love of Christ. What else could it be? I experienced healing, like a miracle. I turned a corner that night physically, but the real transformation was spiritual. The whole thing made my very Episcopal self quite uncomfortable. Maybe that love of Jesus that we talk so much about had finally penetrated all the defenses that I had put up. In that moment, when my heart was most vulnerable, I knew the love of Jesus. My heart was defenseless to God's love.