A New Chapter in Life

When I started my blog Living for Eden I didn't realize in the beginning how healing it would be for me to share my experiences with the world. Those of you who have a blog may understand what I am saying. Like keeping a journal, writing all your emotions and what you learn is therapeutic. Sharing personal things is a form of daily affirmation. I thought I was keeping family and friends informed, I was helping myself heal spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.

After waiting 385 days on an organ donation list, I received a heart transplant. As I recovered my father, a professional journalist, encouraged me to compile my blog into a book. The Living for Eden entries and a dozen other inspiring stories became what Shadow Mountain Publishing has titled, Before My Heart Stops, which is my memoir of events leading to my change of heart.

The national release date is September 9, 2010 on the anniversary of my transplant. The publisher has been very kind and supportive in my desire to use this book as a tool to bring awareness to congenital heart disease and organ donation. I'm excited to advocate these issues and speak to audiences on a book tour currently being scheduled. If anything, I hope this book will help inspire people to acknowledge the hand of God in their lives because of the gifts of chronic illness and other similar challenges faced by millions.

Each waking day, I am reminded that sustaining my life and beating in my chest, is the heart of a young man, a child of God, whose death has given me a future and purpose. I am on borrowed time and determined to honor the sacrifice made. In parallel, for most Christians, we recognize the great sacrifice and death of Jesus. Because of that sacrifice we have been promised life beyond the grave.

Finally, I want to leave with you some of the things I am expected to do as a heart transplant recipient. This is well explained by the retired cardiologist Dale Renlund who listed me to receive a new heart.

"In December 1967 the first successful heart transplant was performed in Cape Town, South Africa. The dying man’s diseased heart was removed, and a healthy heart from a deceased donor was sewn in its place. Since then, over 75,000 heart transplants have been performed worldwide.

In each heart transplant recipient, the patient’s own body recognizes the new, lifesaving heart as “foreign” and begins to attack it. Left unchecked, the body’s natural response will reject the new heart, and the recipient will die. Medicines can suppress this natural response, but the medications must be taken daily and with exactness. Furthermore, the condition of the new heart must be monitored. Occasional heart biopsies are performed wherein small pieces of heart tissue are removed and then examined under a microscope. When signs of rejection are found, medications are adjusted. If the rejection process is detected early enough, death can be averted.

Surprisingly, some patients become casual with their transplanted hearts. They skip their medicines here and there and obtain the needed follow-up less frequently than they should. They think that because they feel good, all is well. Too often this shortsighted attitude puts the patients at risk and shortens their lives.

A heart transplant can prolong life for years for people who would otherwise die from heart failure. But it is not “the ultimate operation,” as Time magazine called it in 1967. The ultimate operation is not a physical but a spiritual “mighty change” of heart." (October 3, 2010 Salt Lake City, Utah)

watch the entire sermon

Stay posted for another update. . .