Paul’s Surgery

by Gene Shelburne

For seven years Paul was our only grandchild. In the next seven years, nine others have come along to claim part of the limelight he once basked in all by himself.

If you’re a regular reader, you know that all ten of my grandkids are extraordinary, outstanding, brilliant, beautiful young ’uns, exceptional in every way. But Paul’s headstart on the others earned him a special hold on our hearts that the latecomers can never match.

Knowing this will help you understand what follows.

As I sit writing these words, Paul and his parents are driving to Lubbock. Their destination is a hospital. Later today a pediatric neurosurgeon will target Paul’s pituitary gland at the base of the front of his brain, hoping to remove a tiny growth that has scrambled this gland’s output for several years.

As you would expect, our family plans to cluster at the Lubbock hospital while the lengthy, delicate surgery takes place. That’s what families tend to do when a loved one goes under the knife. We’re no different.

But yesterday Paul laid on me a bit of practical common sense that belies his fourteen years. Paul knew that the rescheduling of his surgery for today had thrown my own work schedule into a major bind. Every Tuesday night during the school year I teach a three-hour community Bible course, and tonight seems more crucial than some, since it is the very first night of the semester.

“Grandpa,” Paul jabbed me, “if you cancel your class and go to Lubbock, what can you do down there? Do you think the doctors are gonna let you come in to hold my hand while they work on me?”

“Out of the mouth of babes,” as Jesus said, comes perfect wisdom. Paul was right. My presence in Lubbock won’t change things down there one whit.

But God’s presence there can make all the difference, and we have a jillion people literally worldwide praying for His blessings on our special grandson.

“Since Thou their God art everywhere,” one poet wrote, “they cannot be where Thou art not.”  That assurance bolstered my parents when their oldest kid traipsed off to Africa to preach. Now that our own oldest son lives in Italy, this truth quietens our anxieties.

Tonight when class is dismissed I will point my pickup toward Lubbock, secure in the conviction that God has been there all along at Paul’s side.