“Would you?”
“Of course. I’m sure we’ve got one in the car. Give me a minute.”
He returned a bit later with a flimsy paperback version that had seen better days. “I should have thought of that when I came this morning. I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t worry about it. I’m not really in the mood to read. I wanted it more for the comfort.” She held it in her hands and frowned, disappointed. The unfamiliar feel of the cover couldn’t compare with the soft, worn leather of her personal Bible. She flipped to the Psalms and let her eyes skim the page until they caught a familiar verse:
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
She had written out those lines after her first miscarriage and taped them to the bathroom mirror. The verse had still been there when she’d had her second miscarriage, but sometime in the years after she’d removed it; the paper had curled from shower humidity and the words were ingrained on her heart and memory. Why hadn’t they come to mind during the last two weeks?
A disturbing thought came to her as she stared at the Scripture. She hadn’t prayed once-besides the brief and panicky, “Dear God, don’t let my heart go out!” after seeing the X-ray – since coming to the ER. Shaun hadn’t even suggested they pray together.
What had happened to her faith?
Like a panoramic movie, the last ten years of her life scrolled through her mind, revealing the incremental decline of her spiritual life. She saw herself on stages across the country, at the head of endless lines of fans wanting her signature in their books, at planning meetings and publisher meetings and marketing meetings. She didn’t see herself in church, or hidden away in prayer, or reading Scripture. She’d become a businesswoman for God, selling the promise of a meaningful life and cashing in on the desperate longings of harried mothers who wondered if their existence amounted to anything more than carpool schedules and menu planning to stretch a buck.
“Shaun, we need to pray.”
He looked up from his book, concern clouding his face. “Why, what’s wrong?”
“We haven’t prayed at all since we came in. We haven’t prayed together at all since I’ve been home, even. And before the tour…” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I haven’t seen it. I’ve been so caught up in the… the business of ministry. I feel like such a cliche.” A humorless laugh escaped, and her chest burned with the effort. “What if all this is meant to be a wake-up call? We’ve lost our passion, we’ve lost sight of our – our need for God.”
Shaun’s face was sympathetic. “Oh babe, I’m sorry you’re feeling like that.”
“But you see it too, right? It’s not just me imagining this? I mean, when was the last time you and I were really on our knees together? It’s both of us. We’re going through the motions like this is just our career and not a ministry, not a mission.”
Shaun nodded slowly, his eyes trained on the Bible in her lap and his expression unreadable. “No, you’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
“We need to repent. Now.”
Shaun looked to the doorway, then took her hands as she bowed her head. Tears slipped from her cheeks as she asked forgiveness for their prideful independence and lack of desire. Her spirit ached almost as much as her chest as she cataloged all the ways she’d turned Abide & Abound into just another job, all the ways her relationship with Christ had been reduced to a business contract, and Shaun mumbled his agreement along with her. As she prayed she felt a renewed sense of connectedness not only with God, but with Shaun. They’d been more like coworkers than man and wife for a while now; maybe this would reignite the flame they’d once had.
They murmured their amens, Savannah wiping the tears from her face and Shaun giving her hands a brief squeeze before sitting back down in the chair beside her bed. A lightness in her soul gave her a surge of hope. No wonder her body was in revolt. Her spirit had been sick. But maybe now that they were back on track, she’d begin to heal.
Savannah began reading the Psalms again. Now the words were leaping off the page and into her heart. A mix of remorse and relief had her alternately thanking God and confessing her sin as she read for the next hour. After a nurse interrupted her to check her vitals, she looked to Shaun. “Listen, regardless of what we find out today, I want you to call Pastor John and see if he can come over tomorrow. I think we’d really benefit from praying with him. Maybe we should start meeting with him once in a while, to keep us accountable. What do you think?”
“Accountable? What do you mean?”
Savannah was disappointed by his defensive tone. “Just… I don’t know, making sure we don’t slip back into that rut again. You don’t think that would be helpful?”
“That makes me feel like you don’t think I can be trusted to do the right thing without someone breathing down my neck.”
The comment was out of character. Savannah gaped in surprise. “Shaun, what on earth would make you think that? That’s not what I said at all, and it’s certainly not what I meant.” He had always been more private than she when it came to his faith, but she never would have expected him to respond like this. “You used to meet with Alex and Kurt and William once a month for breakfast – that’s the kind of thing I’m thinking of, just a checking-in now and then, someone to ‘report’ to besides just each other. That obviously isn’t working.”
Shaun shook his head and waved a hand to dismiss the idea. “Look, when you’re out of here and we’re back to normal, then we can talk about that kind of thing. For now I don’t even want to think about A &A. I just want us to focus on getting you better.” He sat back in his seat and reopened the book he’d been reading, effectively ending the conversation whether she was finished or not.
Hurt but too tired to fight, Savannah flipped back to the Psalms, but instead of reading she closed her eyes and began to pray.
She awoke with a start, unsure of how long she’d been sleeping. The cardiologist stood at the foot of her bed. “I’m sorry to have interrupted your nap, Mrs. Trover,” he said, his deep voice soothing her. “But I wanted to talk to you about our next step.”
Savannah clutched the Bible tightly with one hand. Shaun grabbed the other. “So you know what’s wrong?” Shaun asked.
“Well, yes and no.” The doctor pulled the curtain as far to the other wall as it would go, giving them the most privacy they’d get in a shared room. He perched himself on the edge of the bed and consulted the printout he held. “Based on a lack of indicators for congenital issues, we’re guessing a virus has attacked your heart- which would make sense, given the flu you had. We just don’t know what virus, though honestly it doesn’t matter at this point. It’s the result that we’re concerned about – namely myocarditis. Heart failure, in layman’s terms. We’re going to keep you here, get you started on some medications that will hopefully help slow down the failure, monitor you for a few days to track your heart’s efficiency, and that will help us determine what the next step is. Typically we can’t do a lot for the myocarditis; we’ll treat the symptoms and give your body the rest and support it needs to heal the heart itself. To that end, we’ll keep you on the heart monitor to watch for arrhythmias, put you on a restricted diet, start you on digoxin and Lasix, and see how things go for the next week or so.”
“A week?” Savannah rubbed a hand over her eyes. “That’s so long.”
“Well, honestly, it may be longer than that. We just have to see what happens.”
Shaun sat on the edge of his seat. “So what are you looking for over this next week then? And what are the options at that point, the possibilities?”
“Well, if things go the way we hope they do, then your heart will begin to strengthen, we’ll see some improvements in energy and strength, and your heart’s efficiency will recover to where it should be. Most patients do recover from myocarditis with standard supportive treatment, and your previous health is a good indicator that you will.”
Savannah was afraid to ask what was on her mind, but more afraid of the unknown. “And if I don’t improve? What then?”
“Hopefully it won’t get to that. But depending on how things go, we may have to try some other medications, see if they slow the failure and help turn things around. A pacemaker may be necessary, if your heart’s rhythm gets
