Words From My Uncle

The other night, my Uncle Jud who received my dad's "extra" kidney wrote a touching email and it puts life in a good perspective. With his permission, I'm cutting and pasting it here. (FYI: the Evie in the story is my aunt):

It is early Wed morning 2 days after surgery and I am waiting for the sleeping pill to take hold. I have spent the last hour in prayer and reflection of this incredible spiritual journey I have been on these last few years dealing with kidney failure. All along I have been comforted knowing that God had a plan for me and I fully expected a miracle healing or divine intervention to reverse this disease. As the time got closer to either going on dialysis or receiving a kidney transplant I did not despair but was looking for God to lead me. I thought that God had chosen my brother Roger to donate a kidney since we both knew that he and I were genetically a match and blood tests confirmed this. Roger contacted the transplant team in Grand Rapids and started the health evaluation, but delays miscommunication questionable lab results led to many delays and made me begin to wonder if this was Gods' plan or mine. A few months prior to this Evie's brother Dean had called me one night and told me that he wanted to donate a kidney. He stated that if he were in my position he would hope someone would step up and volunteer to donate to him. He had just been to his Doctor and his Doctor assured him that there was no reason he could not donate. I was visibly touched by this generous offer, but at the time my brother Roger was being evaluated. When I checked with the transplant office they told me that it did not look good for Roger to be a donor and if I had any other possibilities I should have them call the office to be checked. Evie and I had many others who had offered to donate also and every one of them touched me profusely, but for some reason I had the urge in my spirit to call Dean. He immediately said yes and what did he have to do and who did he have to call. The date I talked to Dean was Sept 11. He called the office the next morning and had blood work scheduled already for the following Monday. The results came back in 2 days that he was a very good match and they scheduled further testing. Dean apologized to me that he could not be tested the first week but would have to wait a week because of business obligations. The testing for Dean went with out a flaw and they were able to do all the testing in one day which is unheard of. Dean got a call 2 days later that it was a go and he told them he wanted to schedule surgery for October 13.

When I look back and see how when we followed Gods' prompting, since He was working in Deans life and was prompting me to call Dean God took over and made every thing fall into place in unbelievebly quick time. Gods hand was all over this miracle I cannot help but think of how Christ like this sacrifice of Dean is. He is willingly suffering and giving one of his orgarns to give me renewed life. Our Savior did something even more remarkable than this. He gave his very life so that we too can have renewed and eternal life. As I write this I have tears streamng down my cheeks, there is no way I can express my deepest thanks to Dean and to all of you who have held us up in prayer. It is so humbling to be the recipient of Gods' grace. To hear of all the people and churches who have been praying for us, you have to know that this was entirely Gods doing and he has answered all of our prayers in a glorious way.

It is my prayer that this whole experience will renew your faith and your prayer life and if just one person can see Gods hand in this an be brought to salvation then all the suffering and hardship is worth it.

In Christ, Jud

Thanks for taking the time to read!