The Sweatshirt

I am wearing my college sweatshirt. It's Saturday and college football is on. Isn't everyone wearing some sort of college gear? But I am wearing my college sweatshirt....for the first time since my heart attack. The morning I had my heart attack, I used one of the breaks in waves of pain to don a sweatshirt for our trip to the ER. It was my college sweatshirt. My mom came over after I was home from the hospital and did laundry. She folded the sweatshirt and put it away for me. I haven't worn it since. I saw it in there a few weeks after my heart attack and nearly had a panic attack. I don't know why. A few months ago, I got it out, determined to wear it. I ended up on the floor bawling my eyes out. I wanted to ask my dad if he ever felt weird about the clothes he was wearing the day he went into the hospital for the first time. It's just that my dad is with Jesus. I couldn't ask him. So I just cried. Then I put the sweatshirt back into the bottom of the drawer.

Allow me to me back up a day.

Yesterday, a friend and I took our kids to a trampoline park. I jumped. And I jumped more. And I jumped high. And although my middle-aged body started to tell me that it might give me some sore muscles to pay for it, I didn't have any "wrong" pain. None.

As I marveled at the fact I wasn't having any "wrong" pain, my friend shared with me that jumping with her friend (me) who had suffered a heart attack was life on a day when she was remembering the keen and devastating loss of a dear brother who did not survive a heart attack.

And so, today I wore the sweatshirt.
It was time to live the days I've been given.
And Psalm 46 continues to amaze me.
The foundations of my life shook and the LORD Almighty is with me.

So I'm wearing the sweatshirt.
And celebrating life.
And celebrating my dad's life.
And CM's life.
And hope.

Jesus changed everything.