The Unmendable Heart
An Unexpected Diagnosis
“The heart is the only muscle in the body that can’t heal itself.”
The respected surgeon and physician avoided eye contact with me. Also a church friend, those words coming out of his mouth cut especially deep. I knew he wanted to relay a more hopeful prognosis almost as much as I needed to hear one.
In late 2015, after visiting convenient care with what I thought was the flu, I spent 14 days in cardiac ICU at my local hospital. With no risk factors and no family history, I was suddenly diagnosed with end-stage heart failure from an unknown cause. My enlarged heart was functioning at just 6%. The most optimistic doctors gave me a five-year life expectancy and we got sympathetic tears from every medical professional we encountered.
I was eventually flown to Cleveland Clinic and became my cardiologist’s most critical patient for a year and a half. During that time, I wore an external defibrillator and titrated potent medications to maximum dosages. I was later implanted with a special pacemaker/internal defibrillator.
And then we waited…to see if I would hit transplant status as experts expected.
An Even Weaker Spiritual Heart
As the next slow months unfolded, I began to realize that the heart muscle I owned was worn out, and options were limited. Though doctors had propped up my weak heart with meds and devices and lifestyle changes, the organ itself would never be restored to its original health.
I felt a chasm widening between me and God. Despite decades of believing, years of serving and leading, and dozens of mission trips, I started to wonder if faith was any good at all. The God I thought I knew seemed indifferent and remote. And I often gave Him the silent treatment right back.
As my physical heart struggled to keep beating, so did my spiritual one.
Still, I read books and scoured websites, researching solutions (even the weird ones). I committed to the battalion of potent meds I was prescribed. And though my own attempts at intercession were limited, I accepted all the prayers I could get. Thankfully, hundreds prayed around the clock. When I couldn’t find the words to pray, I journaled.
From my journal:
Six months into this diagnosis, I am now getting anointed with oil at church. Not sure if that means I’m finally deemed ill enough to warrant it, or that they’re giving up on me, but I welcome it either way.
I’m surrounded by a circle of people I love, some I just know of, some I know about, others I’ve never seen before. Taking my hand, praying over me, dabbing oil, touching my shoulder or my head or my husband. Strange as it seems, I know this is the net of God. I feel His safety being knit underneath me, but most importantly, I feel His care stronger than I ever have. I feel circled by God’s own arms.
Many others brought meals and gifts, always accompanied by words of comfort and words of Scripture. For sixteen months, nothing much changed with the vital muscle in my chest. But through my honest journaling and caring Christians, something was starting to happen with the heart inside my soul.
Some Things Don’t Fix
I eventually leaned into the words of Jesus, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33, NIV)
From that initial hospital stay, I started learning a hard lesson that was reinforced over the ensuing months: This side of eternity, some things don’t fix. I pondered the purpose of prayers for healing: Should we expect faith to stop our bodies from being human? I began to accept a truth I should have embraced long before I did: We can expect trouble that won’t be resolved in this world.
Then, just as these realizations were sinking in, against all medical odds, my cardiac function was initially restored on March 27, 2017.
Based on my reluctant journals, I began blogging and writing articles to help others hold onto their faith as they, too, walked a path they didn’t choose. Last year I finished a book that’s been inside me all my adult life. I may never have given myself the time or the urgency to write it in a safer, healthier life. A few months ago, I signed a contract with a publisher and my book will release early next year.
But my story is not fully written. Three years after my life-saving surgery, my heart function dropped and I was in active heart failure again. Heart failure is a chronic, progressive disease. What I didn’t understand then is that my disease mirrors human life in general. For most, medical science can manage the symptoms. For some, they can slow the progression.
But there is no cure.
Mending the Soul’s Heart
Over the last seven years, I’ve learned a bit more about the tricky business of holding faith in one hand, and an incurable disease in the other.
“If God fixed everything at our whim, we’d settle for temporary results instead of an eternal relationship. He wants us to put Him above our requests.”
In short, God wants our focus higher than ourselves. He wove a perfect eternity into the fabric of our souls. Our unfixable lives call us to long for that better world. And more than anything, He wants us to want Him. If God fixed everything at our whim, we’d settle for temporary results instead of an eternal relationship. He wants us to put Him above our requests. And He yearns for us to rely on each other in anticipation of eternity in His company.
In the early days of my diagnosis, I didn’t always believe God would show up. Most days, I doubted His presence. But on my best days, I had just a flicker of hope. The truth is, I didn’t do anything heroic, other than hang on. And weighed by the metric of mercy, that was enough.
It was enough because others were willing to enter into my pain with me, people who were in a better position to trust and advocate for my change of heart. I have leaned on this group again and again as I continue my daily struggle with this chronic illness and my constant struggle to keep believing.
Though my physical heart will never be what it was pre-2015, thankfully, my spiritual one won’t either. As it turns out, my doctor friend was right when he first visited my hospital room seven years ago.
The most essential, most eternal, heart can’t heal itself.
It takes a whole community of believers to do it.
Lori Ann Wood lives in the shadow of the Ozark Mountains in beautiful Bentonville, Arkansas, with her husband, the unsuspecting guy she chased all the way from 9th grade to grad school. She is mom to three world-changing young adults, one impressive son-in-law (who all live too far away) and a miniature dachshund named Pearl (who threatens to never leave). Her new favorite role is appropriately spoiling her granddaughter, Hazel. Having discovered a serious heart condition almost too late, Lori Ann now writes to encourage difficult faith questions along the detours of life. Her first book, Divine Detour: The Path You Didn’t Choose Can Lead to the Faith You’ve Always Wanted, will release in early 2023.
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