TRANSPLANTED HEART by Tony Manley

I read that Vice President Cheney had a heart transplant recently.  He is now seventy-one, but he began the journey of heart trouble almost forty years ago in his thirties after a heart attack.  I heard several comments that I thought interesting: 

~Is seventy-one too old to receive a new heart?

~Should we still be giving hearts to people after age sixty five…because the average extension of life will only be five more years?

~Did he have connections to get a heart? (the inference was he had connections over someone else who might not have the means or position)

 

I am grateful for and amazed that medical science can take a heart from one person who has died and place it into the body of a living person!

As I read this, I realized that I, too, can celebrate having a heart transplant! I was dead for twenty years and received a new heart! You see, God intervened in my life as a newlywed and gave me a new life with a new heart, one that is eternal and will never have to be replaced (refreshed and revived from time to time, but not replaced).  I couldn’t help but think back to that time in my life because truly I was dying with the heart disease of a sin nature I had had since birth.

Not only did I get a new heart, but God gave me all the medicines/equipment that I would need to live with my new heart. A person that receives a heart transplant must live with certain medications to protect them from rejecting the new heart.  When God transplanted His heart into me, He gave me the Holy Spirit and the written Word as my anti-rejection medicines.  Oh, I can assure you I have had seasons of rejecting my new heart with attitudes and behaviors, but my ever vigilant Physician never allowed me to reject or neglect my medicines (the Holy Spirit and the Word) for long.

 

What joy I feel as I am sure VP Cheney does to be given “a second chance” to live life with a new heart!  The difference between my heart transplant and his transplant is that mine is eternal. All who want can receive the same heart – the heart that cannot be taken away, a heart that is fully paid for, and a heart that will last eternally!