I’m neither writing this to tell you all about what got me into the hospital, nor what it has been like since I’ve been out, but to let you know throughout difficult times God is always there even when you can’t or choose not to see Him (that’s about it for my deep theological insight). I was in the hospital for a total of 47 days (to be honest, not a long time for someone waiting for a new heart). Out of those 47 days, I probably opened the Bible six times…not a great record for someone who is as passionate for God as she is for the Chicago White Sox in the middle of July (ok…maybe my passion for God ranks a little higher than the White Sox). But you know what God did? How did He fix my lack of reading and spending time with Him? He brought other people to do it for me. His Kingdom was brought into my life through the sacrifices of others. Rich would email me the Psalms to my laptop, Luke would tell me all the cool God things that were happening on the campus of The University of Pennsylvania (I was at Penn’s Medical Center), Mick brought my Bible Study group to my room one evening where we laughed and worshipped God, Marti told me her story of how God saved her, Tara let me be a crummy friend at times, Sue did a little of everything for me (too much to account all of it here), Lightning came by almost every day, Mark let me cry, complain, be happy, be sad, ask questions…I could go on and on and on…this is just a sampling of what God did for me.

It wasn’t just my church that came through and acted as this great community for me. The whole medical staff also brought the Kingdom of God into my room on a daily (if not hourly) basis whether they knew it or not. A little background info: it has long been an unfulfilled dream of mine to let God be known to medical students and physicians. I’ve always thought how much better they would be at their profession if God were a part of their lives directing them. In my mind I’ve always tried to imagine what that would look like and how it would play out in my life. It was odd, here I was looking for just the little ways that I could serve them as I was in my myriad of hospital rooms, but as it turned out, they served me.

Fortunately, I wrote in my journal a little more than I read. As I was going through my entries there was one major theme. I kept asking God to be real to me. And, you know what…He answered.

I specifically moved to Philadelphia last August to be a part of a young, new church. As I was leaving the hospital a friend asked me if I knew then that this was all going to happen, would have I still moved out here? My response: Yea, definitely.

Leslie will be exploring the sites this summer and playing in and around Philadelphia, New York City, Washington D.C., Chicago, and any other great place she can think of (suggestions of where she should visit can be emailed to her at leslie@next-wave.org ). Her musical selection for the month is Over The Rhine’s “films for radio.” She also urges you to sign an organ donation card and to tell someone about your decision.