When “Good Enough” Wasn’t the End of the Story

Around Thanksgiving in 2023, I had a sharp pain in my stomach that sent me to the ER.
The diagnosis seemed straightforward: a gallstone. The doctors quickly removed it, but
during the procedure I got ERCP (the procedure) induced pancreatitis. That one
complication led to multi-organ system failure.

The next thing I remember was waking up on a ventilator.

If you’ve never heard that part of my story, you can listen to it here.

After spending five weeks in the hospital, I faced another battle: recovery. It took about
eight months and another procedure before I could walk normally again, regain my
strength, and finally get off all my medications.

For the last two and a half years, my health has been good overall, but one area
remained on both my mind and my nephrologist’s radar: my kidneys. They were
functioning, but not at the level they should have been.

My creatinine levels stayed within the normal range, hovering between 1.12 and 1.19,
and my eGFR—a measure of overall kidney function—sat around 80 last year and 78
this year. Those numbers weren’t alarming, but they weren’t where they should have
been.

Then in May, I had a minor procedure due to this ordeal, but I didn’t realize at the time
that it would affect my kidney health. When I had follow-up blood work in June,
everything changed.

My creatinine had dropped to 0.9.

My eGFR jumped to 110.

For anyone, that’s excellent kidney function.

When I met with my kidney doctor to review the results, he was stunned. After looking
over the numbers, he smiled and then did something I wasn’t expecting.
He discharged me from his practice.

His message was simple: “You don’t need to come back.”

Praise God.

I know who healed me.

As Psalm 103:2–3 reminds us:

“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and
heals all your diseases.”

I tried explaining that to my doctor while he was busy ushering me out the door,
because I knew exactly where the credit belonged.

During those five weeks in the hospital, I survived death three separate times. That was
a miracle.

Recovering enough to walk again and eventually come off medications was another
miracle without having to do out-of-hospital dialysis.

Then, after carrying this lingering kidney issue for the past couple of years, I was healed
again.

Maybe it was one long miracle.

Maybe it was three separate miracles.

Either way, I was healed again.

Just when I thought that this lingering kidney issue was maybe “my cross to
bear”—God healed me again.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). The God
who healed in Scripture is still the God who heals today.

That doesn’t erase the physical or mental toll of what happened.

Suffering changes you.

Waiting changes you.

And if I’m honest, waiting was incredibly difficult for me. I’m impatient by nature.
Sometimes that’s helpful. Most of the time, it isn’t.

There were moments when I wondered if this was simply going to be “good enough.” Maybe this was as healed as I was ever going to get. But is “good enough” really good enough? Only you can answer that question for yourself.

For me, when it comes to faith, it never has been.

Jesus told us in Mark 11:24,

“Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

That verse became something I clung to.

When I was young, someone told me, “Shoot for the stars, and if you miss, you’ll land
on the moon.”

Maybe that’s what my faith journey has looked like.

Pray for complete healing.

Believe for complete healing.

Trust for complete healing.

Don’t settle for less.

Not because God owes us healing, but because He invites us to ask boldly.

James 5:14–15 tells us to call for the elders to pray over the sick, and that “the prayer
offered in faith will make the sick person well.” We don’t control the outcome, but we are
absolutely called to pray.

Throughout those months, I kept speaking healing out loud. I prayed it. I declared God’s
promises. I asked. I begged. I refused to let go.

I remembered the persistent widow in Luke 18:1–8. Jesus told that parable so we would
“always pray and not give up.”

I remember Lifehouse praying for me relentlessly. When I was awake, I wouldn’t let
visitors leave my hospital room without laying hands on me and praying. I was
desperate, and they weren’t afraid to be persistent because they believed, just as I did,
that supernatural healing comes from our Father.

Even after I left the hospital, the prayers didn’t stop.

Friends kept praying.

Churches prayed.

People around the world prayed.

My wife prayed constantly.

She became an absolute driving force during this entire journey. She refused to give up.
She didn’t want tears filling the room—she wanted prayers. She wanted faith. She
wanted encouragement, and she was the perfect ‘gatekeeper’ to allow certain visitors –
The faithful.

Looking back, the hardest part wasn’t nearly dying.

It wasn’t learning to walk again.

It wasn’t the medications.

It was the suffering.

During those five weeks in the hospital, I had no control over anything. Every illusion of
control disappeared. There was nothing I could do except trust God, receive the prayers
of His people, and cry out to Him myself.

Oddly enough, death would have been easier than prolonged suffering.

Instant healing would have been easier too.

But suffering…

How do you prepare for that?

One of my doctors actually tried to encourage me by saying the pain I was experiencing
was greater than childbirth, so now I’d know what childbirth feels like.

I wish I were kidding.

We spend so much of life preparing for careers, marriage, children, retirement, and
countless other milestones.

But we rarely prepare for suffering.

Yet Scripture doesn’t ignore suffering. It speaks directly into it.

Romans 5:3–5 says that “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for
we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of
character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will
not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has
given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”

One of the few things I could do whenever I was awake was worship. A friend sent me a
track by Eric Ludy, He is (The Names of God) – with their scripture refeences, and I
would play this over and over again. There wasn’t much else I could offer Him except
my worship.

Over these last thirty months, a lot has changed.

My body has changed.

My health has changed.

My perspective has changed.

But a few things have never changed.

God is faithful.

He is faithful in miracles.

He is faithful in suffering.

He is faithful whether healing comes instantly, gradually, or in ways we don’t yet
understand.

His people are faithful too. The Church did exactly what Jesus called it to do. They
prayed, they believed, they carried us when we couldn’t carry ourselves.

Being on the receiving end of that kind of love is incredibly humbling.

So today, my prayer is still the same:
Less of me.
More of You.
Praise be to our Father, who is faithful yesterday, today, and forever.