Much comfort from the singers and the preacher in this video. I had seen it before when our son died. It ministered to me in that emotional pain. It ministers to me now in this physical pain.
Dear Josh
Hey, bud.
Two years ago today. Goes by fast. Your damaged heart gave out. Cut down in your prime. I’ll never forget the moment I walked through the door that Saturday afternoon. Your mom trembled the horrific news of our loss. I suspect that scene will never dim in my mind’s eye.
Grief gets easier and it doesn’t. Losing you still ranks first among the hardest things I’ve ever endured. Difficult to imagine anything worse. I’ve said it so many times. No one should have to bury their child.
Honestly, son, things haven’t gotten a whole lot easier since that traumatic day. Oh don’t get me wrong. The Lord has blessed us beyond what we deserve in 2014 and 15. Two of His best gifts are named Blaise and Olivia! How about these cuties?!
But December of 2014 hit hard. Mom got diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer. Since surgery that month she’s worked hard via natural methods to beat the remaining rogue cells in her body. Just today she went to a new doc in Lakeland for the fourth or fifth time. He wants her to have a PET scan ASAP to determine just where we stand. We hope to nail down an appointment for that sometime later this week. Lots of prayers by tons of people going heavenward for Ma. So grateful for all the support.
I’m not without my own issues. Long story, but the gist of things is this. I’ve got a busted jaw. I know the irony of that doesn’t escape you. Preacher’s got a bum mandible! It’s a result of the radiation treatment for my head and neck cancer in 2005. Surgeons plan to replace the dead bone with a titanium plate on February 15. I wrote all about that here. I’m thinking of changing my new Twitter address to @robojaw. What do you think?
For the time being I’m on total medical leave from my duties at the church AGAIN. I’ve seen this movie before back in 2005. I work at my writing mostly, when pain and fatigue allow. But preaching, talking, counseling to any degree? Completely out of the question.
As you can imagine one does a lot of thinking/reflecting when largely confined to the house awaiting a jaw replacement. I keep coming back to the things I miss so much.
Like kissing your mom. Don’t give me that look. You know how crazy I am about her. Do you have any idea how much the jaw comes into play for even the slightest peck on the lips? It’s so frustrating. I do not like in the least this hindrance to our closeness.
Then how about eating? Let me tell you about feasting or the lack thereof. I cannot chew a blessed thing. Nary a bite. I dream about chomping on a blue corn chip, dining on a medium rare ribeye, or even gumming a Five Guys french fry. Can’t do it. The menu these days consists strictly of slush and mush. Nice weight loss plan but I don’t recommend it to anyone.
By the way, I wanted to keep up the tradition I started last year by dining at Emeril’s today. Dear Michelle even posted on my Facebook wall a gracious invitation to lunch. It hurt to decline, though I did ask for a rain check. I went to see finally the new Star Wars movie instead. I’m glad I waited until this anniversary day to check it out . You loved the saga so much. I think mostly you would have enjoyed episode 7. It was a comfort to me, but not at all like having Fabian serve me one of those mouthwatering duck tacos and reminiscing with him and the other terrific staff at the restaurant.
I could go on, but I’ll finish with the issue of my preaching. I had to stop cold in the middle of my series on Gen. 14. It just hurt too much to speak for any length of time. I’m on the bench, riding the pines, while others occupy MY pulpit Sunday in and Sunday out. Not fair!
Josh, I thought, I hoped, I dared believe maybe I learned in ’05 some of these lessons related to good things that I so readily turn into god things so that they become bad things. Perhaps not as much as Jesus thinks necessary for me. I just have to keep learning and relearning the main thing . . .
Jesus is enough.
My joy, contentment, satisfaction can’t depend on the presence or absence of God’s good gifts. I need to grow more in saying with Paul in Phil. 4:11-13 that I have learned the secret of being content. I need to sing with the poet more earnestly these words in Psalm 73:25-26.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Lips out of commission? Jesus is enough.
Feasting off the table? Jesus is enough.
Preaching out of the question? Jesus is enough.
Maybe I’ll get it through my thick head and slow heart this time, dude. One can only hope.
By the way, this father misses you terribly, but, and I think you won’t take this the wrong way . . .
Jesus is still enough.
He is gloriously, powerfully, graciously, abundantly, and savingly enough.
How To Be the Church When the Pastor Can’t Be the Pastor
Ever since my jaw fracture forced me to the pastoral sidelines, I’ve given some thought to this question. How can a pastor’s extended absence from his church result in their greater good? In hopes the saints at OGC might actually thrive, not just survive, my health hiatus, I offer these Scripture verses as essential principles for being the church when the pastor can’t be the pastor:
- Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases (Psalm 115:3). Stay anchored in the sovereignty of God. My mandible misery is no accident. His plan for His church to soldier on for the time being without me is precisely that–His plan.
- And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28). This season–8 hour surgery, week-long hospital stay, and all the rest of it–abounds with good in it for me, my bride, as well as my church. For example, some things God can only do in his servant by laying him out. He can get your attention on the bench in ways you never realize in the game. The benefits of the trial accumulate by the day for me. Keep your eyes open similarly for yourself.
- For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls (1 Pet. 2:25). Just like I remind everybody on day one of each Discover OGC membership class–I am NOT the senior pastor; Jesus is. Only one pastor holds the title “Chief Shepherd.” And He has promised never to leave us or forsake us. Church, you always have Jesus.
- So I exhort the elders among you (1 Pet. 5:1a, emphasis added). This balances number 3. God does give to His church pastors and teachers to shepherd them (1 Pet. 5:2-3). Sometimes we need Jesus with skin on. But in wisdom He rests the pastoral load on a plurality of elders. You almost always find the word in the plural form in the New Testament. No church benefits by relying excessively on one leader. God has plans through my leave both to grow our other elders in their ministries and increase your legitimate reliance on their pastoral role in your life.
- And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12). This piggybacks on number 4. Pastors don’t exist just to tend the saints’ spiritual needs; they have a calling to equip the saints for spiritual ministry. Church, the body of OGC needs every single one of you more than ever! Are you in the game or riding the pines on the sideline (assuming you have a choice)? Where are you bringing your spiritual gift(s) to bear on others in community (1 Pet. 4:10-11)? When you see a need in the body, are you asking the Lord how you possibly might be the one to meet it?
- For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance (Phil. 1:19). I can think of no better place to end. My circumstances differ from Paul’s to be sure. But my need for your prayers and Jesus’ help doesn’t. May our heightened sense of need in this hard providence at the outset of 2016 cause us to seek His face like never before.
Lord willing, Jesus plans to restore me to the work at Orlando Grace before too long.
I look forward to coming back with a better-than-ever jaw and church to go with it. And that largely because you have been the church when this pastor could not be your pastor.
Chronic Pain & Deeper Healing
I dealt with considerable pain from my tongue cancer and its treatment back in 2005. But it doesn’t compare with my experience these days enduring a pathological fracture of the jaw. Pain which never lets up brings a whole new series of challenges to redeeming suffering as a follower of Jesus.
Knowing I would have hours of windshield time to and from Miami last week for the consult with the surgeon there, I did a search online the day before I left. I wanted to download some resources/messages on the subject of pain. The Lord reminded me of Joni Eareckson Tada along the way. If anyone would have words of wisdom about dealing with chronic pain, she most certainly would. I had no idea just how right that impression from the Lord would prove to be.
Of the half-a-dozen or so talks to which I listened on the road last Monday and Tuesday, this one struck home with the most Holy Spirit force. Nancy and I just finished watching it together prior to my writing this post. Whether your story involves protracted suffering or not, I cannot commend more strongly this teaching from a woman who testifies authentically with the poet, “My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees” (Psalm 119:71, NLT).
Please, I plead with you, do your soul a mega-good. As soon as you possibly can, invest the mere thirty minutes it will take to view Joni’s message. My prayer is that every one of our covenant members at Orlando Grace would do so. Beyond that, of course, all the better.
VALENTINE’S DAY IN MIAMI
Can’t say I don’t know how to show my bride a good time. Yes sir, I’m pulling out all the stops this year. I’m taking Nancy to the Magic City on February 14. Unfortunately we won’t be having a romantic dinner for two on South Beach, unless you count Smoothie King a five star establishment. No, we will head that way on the 14th so I can report for jaw replacement surgery first thing in the morning on the 15th.
After visiting on Monday of this week with Team Marx associated with Jackson South Community Hospital, we had no doubt the Lord had led us to just the right resource to deal with my fractured mandible. The image above shows the results of a CT scan they did in the office that day. If you look closely at the largest of the pictures head on at the top, you can see to the left (my right side) the break in the bone. Apparently there are some splinters of the jaw floating around in there adding to my misery. To use one of the doctors words after they examined the area treated with radiation in 2005–“You got fried.” And so I did and these are some of the unfortunate consequences.
The procedure takes anywhere from seven to nine hours. It begins with removing all the dead bone on that side of jaw. I will lose the next two teeth in line as well since they are sitting on top of dead bone. Fortunately the titanium plate (pictured above) then implanted will not, in my case, pass the mid-line, as in this stock picture I grabbed from the web. While the oral surgeon does his thing up above, a micro-vascular surgeon will work below on my right thigh to start something called a “free flap” transplant. When the jaw is finished, then the second surgeon will attach the vein he pulls from my leg to a good blood supply on the left side of my neck and run it across to the right side. This will insure adequate blood supply for the needed tissue growth and healing of the jaw.
After the surgery I will spend two nights in ICU to monitor the free flap part of the process carefully. Assuming all goes well with that, then it’s off to the main floor of the hospital for another four or five days. The docs are very optimistic about how quickly I can heal and get back to work, but some of that depends on how many HBO2 dives I am likely to need after surgery to aid in the healing process. I’m still waiting for more info in that regard.
Honestly I had hoped for a sooner surgery date than February 15, but supply and demand being what it is in this highly specialized kind of procedure, I am grateful I don’t have to wait even longer.
One last tidbit. When one of the doctors who will work on the free flap procedure heard I was a pastor, he smiled and shared with me that he takes online courses at Southern Seminary in his free time! He went out of his way as a brother in Christ to give me his contact info and even friended me on Facebook. The Lord is so kind to add those touches of providence to our circumstances when we are asking for His clear leading.
While I wait for “Operation Robojaw” to take place, I hope to make as much progress as I can on my manuscript for Baker Books. Fortunately it doesn’t hurt when I write, only when I preach!
The Creed According to “Creed”
I told Nancy all I wanted for Christmas–other than a new jaw, of course–was to see the movie “Creed.” Hailing from the Philly area and long a fan of the “Rocky” films, regardless of their relative quality, I wanted to see this latest edition in the saga, even if it hadn’t gotten such a good review. For Flikster’s take on the film click here.
The point of this post isn’t for me to review the film, although my bride and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sylvester Stallone delivers a surprisingly nuanced performance as Adonis Creed’s trainer. Michael B. Jordan is riveting in his portrayal of the conflicted son of one time heavyweight champion Apollo Creed. Be advised if you do see it, that there is one scene of PG-13 sensuality which did not seem necessary to me, but Hollywood will be Hollywood.
Oops, I slipped into review mode after all. Enough of that.
I felt led to do this post because I sensed the Lord speaking to me rather distinctly through the movie. OK, some of you are thinking, pastor’s painkillers have taken their toll. I’m not talking about any kind of audible voice. It’s hard to describe. I’ve only ever had it happen to me one other time that I can recall. That was back in 2001 with the movie “Castaway.” So this is rare. But just as the Lord had a word of encouragement for me with Tom’s Hanks’ port-o-potty washed ashore his island prison, He clearly used this film in a common grace timely way to help prepare me for what looms around the corner in 2016.
Take a look at the trailer, if you like, and I will explain what I mean.
In the film, Creed has his fight and Rocky has his. “It’s just another fight,” Adonis pleads. They got me with the two of them standing before the mirror. So in the ring, also in life. One’s biggest opponent is oneself. “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). As for this jaw replacement challenge, it’s just like any other fight. “One step, one punch, one round at a time.” Oh I wish that oft repeated line in the movie had made its way into the trailer! That, dear ones, is the creed according to “Creed.”
What heavyweight bout looms on your fight card in 2016?
So maybe God won’t speak to you from a movie, but what about these jewels from His word as you enter the New Year fray?
“Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Tim. 6:12).
“If God is for us, who can be against us” (Rom. 8:31)?
“We are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37).
It’s just another fight.
Sorrows and Preaching
If the good people of Orlando Grace Church can possibly summon the patience to wait AGAIN for this pastor to struggle through what feels like his thousandth sorrow, I hope eventually to return to them a better preacher and pastor. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
For my readers not enamored by the likes of D.A. Carson or Tim Keller or even my beloved John Piper, I ask your indulgence through viewing this video. I wept and prayed as I watched.
A Different Kind of Christmas Gift
I have blogged before in praise of nurses and their most noble of professions. You can read that post by clicking here. Something happened the other day in HBO2 dive #31 which compels me to sing their praises yet another time.
Before describing the particular “gift” prompting this Christmas Eve post, let me just say this about the crew serving the Florida Hospital South deep wound unit day after day. These are as remarkably cheerful, professional, attentive, and compassionate professionals as you will ever want to encounter. I just wish they would stop calling me “Mr. Heffelfinger” all the time! It makes me feel so old. But their code of respect toward the patient will permit no informality whatsoever, while being as warm as they can possibly be at every turn.
Just before the chamber door shut, one of those dear ladies in blue scrubs approached my wheel chair with smartphone in hand. She asked, with something of a sparkle in her eye, if she could read me something. “Sure,” I said, wondering what she had to share with this jaw-broken patient. She later sent this text to my phone.
The Servant’s Reward
One day, when you are in Heaven,
someone will come up to you and thank you
for the way you touched his or her life.
The person’s words will take you completely by surprise.
Soon, another person will seek you out,
and then another, and another.
As you listen to each one’s story,
you will begin to discover all the ways that God used your life
when you were unaware of it.
You will find that it was most often not through the big things that you did,
but through the small and simple things–
a spoken word that was not planned,
a spontaneous act of kindness,
a loving attitude or a caring smile.
To your joy, you will discover that in all these ways and more,
God used you to deposit an eternal measure of His love
into many needy hearts.
~Roy Lessin~
She finished reading and just looked at me quietly smiling as much to say, and I think I got the message correctly, “It’s not lost on us what you do day-in-and-day-out here with your encouragements to us.” To be honest, I think the determination to bless my caregivers with thanks, affirmations, compliments and the like is more about me than about them. I can’t stomach the thought of being a trial to these all-star performers when I can be by God’s grace a treasure of a low maintenance, high-patience, why-complain-when-you-can-bless patient in their care.
Besides, I know what God’s word says in the wisdom books in Prov. 15:23.
“To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is!”
Her gift touched me. She went out of her way to reinforce just how important a gift a word of encouragement can be to others. Whatever 2016 brings in my trial by jaw journey, I hope never to forget this special dimension of a servant’s reward. Might you do the same with the Lord’s help?
A Shambles of a Mandible
I draft this 800th post from Room 3355 at Florida Hospital South. The quest for solving the puzzle plaguing my right jaw stretches on toward the very end of 2015. After two hospitalizations, six weeks of heavy-duty antibiotics, a CT scan, variations on the themes of pain management, and twenty-nine hbo2 dives to increase blood supply to the affected area, more pieces now fit together to make quite clear the nature of my condition.
I have what’s called a pathological fracture of the jaw. See the dark gap to the left below the teeth in the image above? Mine’s not that bad fortunately, but it gives you an idea of what’s going on in my mouth. This kind of thing often happens over time to head and neck cancer patients whose treatment protocol included radiation to the tumor bed and surrounding area. The advanced stage of my tongue cancer in 2005 required no less than thirty-nine such blasts. Allow me to quote one doctor who examined me after this morning’s dive. “There is so much damage down there.” To use my own words, my mandible is a shambles. No way it heals on its own, regardless of the number of dives I execute or any other healing strategy doctors might bring to bear on it. This man’s jaw, at least the right lower side, can no longer fight the good fight.
I can’t bite down on it with any considerable pressure at all. My diet consists of liquids and mushy foods. I down a lot of smoothies, oatmeal, yogurt, and the like. Last week I hit my married weight after dropping about twenty pounds. Let’s just say Jesus sees fit in this latest version of the Heffelfinger sanctification strategy to pound away at some of my more significant idols.
What to do? All I want for Christmas is a brand new jaw! Well, a used bone that is harvested from my tibia or hip to shape and insert up there following resection of the diseased portion of the bone. Believe it or not, that’s the easier part of the whole procedure. It takes an entirely different surgical team to perform something called a free flap micro-vascular operation to the jaw for bringing ample blood supply to the area and ensuring tissue coverage of every bit of live bone remaining. Sounds lovely, eh?
No specialist in Orlando does this free flap thing or so I’ve been told. To get this done means seeing a man in Tampa. My doctor here has referred me over that way. We have yet to connect. Why does this stuff always happen to Nancy and me around the holidays? Nobody wants to work the last two weeks of December!
So I really don’t know a whole lot yet about the details of this highly specialized solution to my particularly disabling problem. What I do know is that surgery runs about eight hours, then two days in ICU, and four more days or so in the hospital. Until I consult with the Tampa doc, I have no idea how much PT I might need and/or how long before some degree of jaw-normal returns so I can eat a complete diet once more, resume my pastoral duties, and KISS MY WIFE PROPERLY AGAIN! As those pieces of the puzzle come into play, I will be certain to log in for follow up posts. Needless to say I would like to get this over with sooner rather than later. The Lord knows.
My fellow elders at OGC have graciously granted me medical leave until the first Sunday of the New Year. At that point we will reevaluate. I am thankful for all the servants stepping up to pinch hit for me on all sorts of fronts. As we did in 2005, we have a choice opportunity for the church to be the church, relying on everyone’s gifted contribution to the body’s shalom as opposed to relying inordinately on just one person’s service. Church, reach out to your assigned elder, if you need pastoral care. New people, normally considered “my part of the flock,” please turn to any of the other elders to which you feel led. And of course, all, let’s rely on each other as we do the New Testament “one anothers” and thus build ourselves up in love (Eph. 4:12-16).
Our thanks as well for the terrific handmade cards from last Sunday, the texts, gifts, and outpouring of offers to assist in some way. I appreciate everyone understanding my request for no visitors during my hospital stay. The more I talk, the greater the pain.
A final thought before wrapping up this entry. One evening during my previous hospital stay I watched the movie, “Unbroken.” It’s the true story of Olympic runner Louie Zamperini turned WWII prisoner of war and his heroic journey of perseverance under inconceivably difficult strains. Having thoroughly enjoyed Laura Hillenbrand’s book of the same title, I’ve desired to see the film version for some time. I prefer the book over the film for one particularly significant reason, but that’s an occasion for a separate blog post. Still the Lord used one line in the movie at this especially challenging time in my life to galvanize me in the most personal of ways. It helped prepare me for yet another daunting trial involving my physical well being. The same line turns up twice in the movie’s trailer below.
“If I can take it, I can make it.” Trust me, that’s not how I weathered the cancer storm of ’05. That sentiment did nothing for me in the loss of our son nearly two years ago. Such a notion was worthless to me with Nancy’s cancer diagnosis last December. And it won’t cut it when they open my face, dismember the dead bone, plate and screw a replacement, attach artery to vein in my mouth, close, and rehab me for who knows how long at Tampa General.
But I tell you what grand sentiment and massive promise of God’s word will. “I can do all things through Him [Jesus] who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). I’ve waved that banner by God’s grace over every previous Father-filtered hard providence which has shaped my life thus far. I’m not about to resort at this point to the shaky ground of self-reliance. I know all too well that I can’t take it and won’t make it. No thank you very much, I’ll stick with the Lord who puts us in these dilemmas precisely so we won’t rely on ourselves but on Him who raises the dead (2 Cor. 1:9).
Mandible Misery My Mentor
I know. I don’t look very miserable in this picture. That was a good day coming forth from hyperbaric O2 therapy number whatever for deep wound treatment to my radiation-decimated jaw. I managed to prevail on the nurses’ good graces that day to get some pics from the bowels of the compression chamber so others could have some idea of what my new normal looks like these days.
Here’s another.
I’m not hooked up here, of course. There is no O2 flowing. But this gives an idea of the rig I have to wear as a delivery system of 100% O2 for three thirty-minute periods, five times a day at Florida Hospital South. All sorts of fun.
So far I’ve navigated twenty-one of these. Nineteen to go. The adjustment hasn’t gone all that rough. I read a good bit of the time now. Apart from the occasional nausea bout, things go pretty smoothly.
Unfortunately I don’t have much progress to report. Hence my word “misery.” This past weekend my pain spiked. I cut church. If you know me, I never want to give up a preaching opportunity and chance to worship with God’s people (Heb. 10:24-25). Oops. I probably should have put them in the opposite order. Oh well. Sunday is the best day of the week, by far. I am thankful for an extraordinary pastoral intern who stepped in for me at the last minute. You can listen to his message here.
With the pain spike came a fever on Sunday night. OK, now I’m getting nervous. Long story short, after consulting my dentist, infectious disease doctor, and oral surgeon since then, we have a unanimous verdict. Off to the hospital I go. It’s time to circle the wagons and call in some big gun consultants to play what-do-we-do-with-what’s-left-of-this-preacher’s jaw. The idea is to get my pain under control. I’m all for that. Then to get me hydrated and built up nutritionally. Not only can’t I eat; I am also having difficulty swallowing. It hurts that much. Then, Lord willing, next week they will operate again to remove more dead bone and hopefully save the jaw. I’m not kidding on that one. If my mandible gets a pathological fracture, I’m looking at some sort of radical replacement surgery I DON’T EVEN WANT TO THINK ABOUT! Has my sense of urgency come across the page? Please pray for mercy for me in this regard. I have read about this procedure. I would really rather avoid it, if at all possible.
But if I do, my mandible mentoring, miserable as it might be, will continue with sovereign efficacy. God wastes nothing in our suffering, whatever its nature. In hard providences like these, I remember verses like Psalm 119:71.
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
This slow learner apparently needs an extra dose of afflictions that he might learn all the more the treasure of treasures, the law of the Lord. Mentor me, oh my Master (and I don’t mean my mandible, but my mandible-maker), but please, I beg of you, go easy on what’s left of this poor man’s miserable jaw. Amen.
curtheffelfinger.com 