Or When I Became Ok with God’s Will
by Kari Roman
Schererville, IN

Brain aneurysm…some call it “The Ticking Time Bomb.” God saved me from that bomb! My grandma, my first cousin, and my precious sister all died from brain aneurysms. I call these three women “my angels”!

My sister died September 27, 2005, at the age of 37. I was finishing surgical technology college when she passed away. One of our “big sister” talks was the reason why I went to college. Immediately after graduation, I started working in surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. My specialty was joint surgeries. Next door to my operating room was neurosurgery, where brain surgeries took place.

After a while, I thought I should be pro-active and get my brain checked even though I was asymptomatic (no common symptoms to give me a sign of a brain aneurysm). I had an MRI, an MRA, and a CT scan performed. Sure enough, I was diagnosed with a ticking time bomb—an aneurysm! I had a peace that I couldn’t explain. The good Lord was there with me when I wasn’t asking Him to be! That’s how good God is! September 5, 2006, just two weeks after finding out I had an aneurysm, I was in surgery having my first brain surgery!

When I recovered, I was thrilled and felt God’s love, even when people often shared their “death” stories of people they knew with brain aneurysms. (Bless their hearts!) Slowly I started to feel that God saved me one time from Hell, and He saved me again—this time to be able to stay alive here with my family!

It is very uncommon for someone to have a new aneurysm appear. About five years later, I was having some tests done to check my brain, and another brain aneurysm was found. This time though, it was SO different to me when I heard the bad news because I was now married with two children—my youngest being five months old! Recovering from brain surgery is not a speedy recovery; you cannot pick up anything for a minimum of a month (which meant my baby), and the therapy is very intense. Needless to say, I was very scared! But God would always keep reminding me, “I am STILL with you!”

Often moms are so much the glue in making the family “work.” Several evenings I would cry alone thinking, “What if I die in surgery? What if my aneurysm ruptures before surgery? My husband will remarry! My kids won’t have their mommy, and I won’t have them! Who will bathe and feed them? Who will make sure they have clean clothes? Bring them to school? Bring them to church? Who will love them like the LOVE a mother gives?” and so many more thoughts!

But then what I started thinking is, “WHAT IS GOD’S PLAN for me and my family? Maybe I’m not supposed to be here for HIS plan to work!” While I wallowed in this idea, I tried to think about my seeing His face! I thought, “Hearing the beautiful music and feeling my Father’s hand taking mine and holding me like a child!” How the tables turned for my thinking!

I then thought, “It’s not me that I should be sad for because I will be with my Father! My family and friends will be the ones who are sad that they will miss me, but I will be with Jesus!” Then I imagined that God’s plan for my husband might be to remarry, and someone would love my children, and somehow that thought gave me peace because I realized I am NOT what makes this family “work.” It is already God Who is making it work! And however He needs it to “work” is how I want it to “work.”

I am human, and at times the fear of death still comes, due to having two aneurysms—what if there is a third? But I feel that thought is Satan’s trying to attack my spirit, and I quickly have to remind myself that God is still in control and that He Loves ME SO, SO, SO much! His plan is still to let me be with my wonderful husband and boys, and I will enjoy it!!

I had my second SUCCESSFUL brain surgery on April 19, 2012. It was a longer and rougher recovery than the first, but in my eyes, the dear Lord now has saved me three times. I am here with my family, being a wife and mother to them and serving God the best I can. Somehow my surgeries became my “goggles” to view how God saw my life, and I felt how much He really loves me. Even when I fail, I know to keep standing with Christ; no other way makes sense! I don’t know if I would have felt so loved by Him if it weren’t for my life with brain aneurysms.

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)