I have had a very interesting week and that my friends is an understatement. I want to remind you again that these Nuggets and Gems are live. I am writing them as things unfold around me. You well know by now if you are a Gem and Nugget reader and especially if you get them emailed to you. There is a sign up panel at the bottom of every Gem and every Nugget of simply click here www.bereaninsights.org/sign-up/ . I have plans and good intentions like all of you. “But your plans Ian are not Mine” says the LORD. On Monday of this week I wrote Gem 1955 and told you in that Gem I was going in for Cataract surgery early on Wednesday morning. As a result there would be no Gem Wednesday but I would send Gem 1956 on Friday. Well by now Gem 1956 is conspicuous by its non-appearance. Suffice to say, things did not go according to my plans. However I am sure pleased that God had things in hand. The second part of my plan, was to move on focusing on the good things – the Praise, the Solace and the Glory. But once again I remind you that Gems and Nuggets are live. I have been delayed over the past three weeks as things have unfolded around me and I have attended a number of unexpected funerals and one unveiling. Permit me to put the pieces together for you.
- I was told by a number of people, including my eye surgeon, that cataract surgery was “a walk in the park”.
- “Nothing to worry about, you will be in and out of there in 20 minutes.”
It sure started fine. I was not worried in the least; even just a little bit. I don’t get worried before an operation, even a big one. Nor do I worry even just for a nano second about going to the dentist. God’s got this; I don’t need to be concerned. Everything was calm “in theatre” and my surgeon and his team settled into another routine cataract op. But not long into it I picked up vibes of panic. The membrane around my eye sac had torn and gel was leaking out. They were leaping into action and my surgeon was evidencing stress and a degree of tension. At one point he said, “We have to work quickly on this. We have to get the gel cleaned up and the machine has no suction.” I found out afterwards they needed to change plan mid-stream and do things another way. I didn’t panic and just lay still but you can bet I was praying and asking the LORD to take over.
- “Jesus take the wheel.”
- LORD, “I commit myself to you.”
- “LORD, take over here.”
I was pleased to hear at my appointment in the afternoon after my cataract surgery that the surgeon had encountered a torn eye sac once before out of 500 cataract operations. Well I for one was pleased to hear he had had experience of this. That he had now experienced two torn eye sac surgeries out of 500. Now the odds had shortened a little. However I do hasten to add in order to bring balance and honesty to what I am writing that even though I have titled this When Pain Turns to Panic and Calm Turns to Chaos, I am taking poetic license in so doing. Even though things in theatre ramped up a couple of notches, my surgeon was not panicked, neither were things chaotic. You see the surgeon had met this before and quickly and determinedly instructed the team to do what they needed to do. It set me to thinking. I am so glad I am a child of God and I can trust my LORD, the ONE WHO SPOKE THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH INTO EXISTENCE to hold me in times like this.
There has been no Gem Wednesday as planned but also nothing Friday because I am healing and my sight is BEING restored. The progress has been as follows.
The image on the bottom left is momentary, but is the expectation I have on the basis of the ophthalmologist’s prediction that I will be able to see well without glasses despite the glitch in theatre. Although my daughters and Tania find it a little strange at the thought of seeing me without glasses. That is a little incongruous. Even my phone with facial recognition doesn’t know me now. My face has changed too much it seems. But I assure you, I am still the same Ian. I have stayed away from the computer over the intervening time or at least have put on my prescription sunnies (Lower right) to cut down the brightness of the screen. But my sight is gradually, day by day, heading toward the new Ian. I am so glad God has got me and holds me in times like this last week.
Know that God holds you too in HIs grip and all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28
Ah but you and I and those who know there is more to this verse, know that it doesn’t prevent bad things from happening to God’s people. More on that next week. I have one more thing to share with you about my past week. I shared with you in the previous Nugget about the unveiling of Jeremiah’s headstone. But what I haven’t told you is what Tangi shared on the day we met to celebrate Miah’s life and the unveiling of his memorial headstone.
I had seen both Tangi and Lilly the week before and I learned that Tangi had lost his wallet. As they prepared things for the Unveiling, Tangi had gone to the petrol station to fill up and have either left his wallet somewhere or it had fallen out of his pocket. It was lost and he knew it had happened at the petrol station, or between and the next place he went where he realised he didn’t have his wallet anymore. So I told Tangi of the time I lost a huge sum of money on arriving in Indonesia.
We had only been in the country a few days when I went to the bank to change all of the travellers cheques we had brought with us into Indonesian Rupiah. I went to the bank first and changed the money then I went to the central markets to get some food items for Tania, following which I headed home by public mikrolet. I went to the transport terminal and got on a mikrolet heading to our area. I sat there for a while but the driver wasn’t moving. I realised he wasn’t leaving yet and so got out and into another one that was about to leave, so I made the last passenger. On the way home I stopped at the Kodak shop on the big intersection to pick up the photos I had left to be developed the day before. In the Kodak shop I reached for my wallet and realised it was not in my pocket. But a worse realisation was to come – I had the chicken and some veges but I didn’t have the pouch with the bank exchange money in it. I panicked. I had no money to pay for the photos. All I could do was walk the mikrolet route to the terminal which was close to the house where we were staying.
I set off walking in the direction of home looking intently at every mikrolet that came toward me. I but hadn’t gone further than 500 or 600 metres when the one I had travelled in to the Kodak shop pulled up beside me. I was elated when the driver got out and gave me my wallet. It had fallen out of my pocket behind the low bench seat and a fellow passenger had seen it. But that wasn’t my main concern, which was the money pouch with the money from the bank exchange. That contained all the cash money we had in Indonesia with no chance to get any more money until we could open up a bank account. All my wallet contained was some small money I had got as change from the central market. But of course I was pleased to get my wallet back with photo ID’s etc. I asked to check in the vehicle to see where my pouch was. It wasn’t there; there was no sign of it. It was well and truely gone and I had no idea where I had lost it.
I rode that same mikrolet back home and told Tania the sad news that I had lost all our money from the exchange of the travellers cheques and we had no way to get anymore money until we could set up a bank account AND PUT MONEY IN IT. So we did the only thing we knew to do. WE PRAYED and asked the LORD to return our money to us somehow. Tania then suggested that I go up to road to the house of the Dean of the Faculty I was to lecture in at the University and report our loss to him and ask him how to get in touch with the police. When I told him my sad story he commiserated with me but told me, “Ian, this is Indonesia. Losing money in the way you have described, there is no way you will get it back. It’s impossible. You can report it if you wish but you don’t even know where you lost it if it wasn’t in the mikrolet you got out of at the Kodak shop.”
I said, “Well I believe I will get it back. Tania and I have prayed and I believe God will return our money to us.” His response was to scoff at my statement and say “Ian this is Indonesia not New Zealand.”
I went back home and told Tania what the Dean had said. Tania said, “Let’s pray again and ask God’s help.”
We were sitting in the front room of the house about an hour later when a mikrolet came down our narrow little road and went slowly passed without stopping. We already knew the public transport vehicles didn’t take the smaller streets. The drivers stuck to the main arterial routes and passengers had to walk to their houses. Suddenly that same mikrolet was coming around again, only this time it stopped outside our house. The driver came in to our property carrying my black pouch. He was the guy who operated the first mikrolet I have got in at the market. It seems when I picked up my shopping bags, the pouch had slid down between the bags and was lying on the floor at the back. I checked the contents of the bag and indeed everything was intact. The only way the driver could have known where to find us was by opening up the pouch, unwrapping the money and reading the bank form wrapped around the money which had the address of the house where I was living together with the total amount of money in rupiah. It was in millions. I gave the driver a LARGE reward.
I then went up to Dean to report to him what had just happened. He was stunned. He stood for a moment without saying anything and then he said, “That never happens in Indonesia. That is astounding. Allah was looking after you.” From that day onward when we were together with Dean at a university gathering with a new group of people he would say, “Ian tell your story!”
Thursday before Miah’s Unveiling I told Tangi the short version of that story and said on the basis of my experience I will pray that God will return your wallet to you. I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed that just as God had answered our prayer in Indonesia, I had confidence to ask that He would do the same for Tangi and LIlly. “So Lord I ask that you would organise for Tangi’s wallet to come back to him. . . Thank You LORD.”
At the Refreshment time at the church after the Unveiling Tangi shared how he had lost his wallet and how Uncle Ian had prayed and asked the LORD to arrange for Tangi’s wallet to be returned to him. He told us all that it had been handed in at a police station and it was able to be picked up from there.
Do you see that whatever our concern in life we can ask for God to intervene? As we experience these things in our lives and we turn to God, we grow with each experience in the knowledge that we can share our troubles and anxieties with our Heavenly Father and He will give us PEACE. Each time we do this it comforts us so on other occasions we can comfort others with the comfort God used to comfort us as Hans commented on in the Comments section of the last Nugget.
In the last Nugget I shared 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 with a link to the previous Nugget (aPP 24) below to read it.
In the next Nugget I will lead you deeper still.