Open Doors

One of my long-time prayers through my faith walk has been for the Lord to open the doors I'm meant to walk through and close the doors I'm not. I've had seasons when that prayer felt scary - even as the words were tumbling from my mouth, I knew which doors I personally wanted opened and alternatively closed, and I wasn't sure those doors aligned with God's. And that's where trust comes in. Faith and surrender have always been beautiful companions.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
                               Proverbs 3:5-6

I needed God to open some doors. If I was going to do this, I wanted to be able to get pretty far along in the process before involving Alan. Maybe we all have some hidden Facebook stalking  abilities lurking beneath the surface, and this gave mine an opportunity to shine. I wasn't FB friends with Alan, but I was with his mom, which gave me some access to his life. It didn't take me long to confirm which kidney transplant center I needed to contact and begin the process. On January 4th, I took a deep breath and submitted the confidential health history questionnaire.

In the course of my Facebook stalk, I also came across Alan's blood type, which is a really important factor for transplant.   We matched.

On February 3rd, I went to my local lab to submit my first round of bloodwork and on February 8th I got the call from my Living Kidney Donor Coordinator, "negative crossmatch." Wait a minute...negative? She responded in her sweet southern accent, "Yes ma'am, his blood is showing no negative reaction to yours." It seems confusing at first, but a negative crossmatch means that Alan's antibodies don't attack mine, which means that we are compatible for transplant.   We are a match.

If I'm honest, it didn't surprise me. It's one of those things that I can only explain through the Holy Spirit. My spirit knew before I cognitively knew that we were a match, but it was confirmation nonetheless...God was beginning to crack open the door.