How Faith Helped Amy Grant Through Health Scare: I Sensed God in Each Moment
By Movieguide® Contributor
In a recent essay for Guideposts, Christian singer Amy Grant is opening up about how her faith helped her through a major health crisis.
“In December 2019, my husband, Vince Gill, had an appointment with his cardiologist, John Bright Cage, to go over some test results,” Grant wrote. “I went with him. Vince got a great report; his heart was in good shape. Then Dr. Cage turned to me and said the strangest, most unexpected thing. ‘Amy, I think I need to check you out too.’”
“Me?” she continued. “I didn’t have any heart issues. In fact, most of my life I’d enjoyed a freakish amount of energy. But recently I had noticed some shortness of breath while singing (something I’ve been doing professionally since I was a teenager) and an irregular heartbeat that would occasionally leave me feeling dizzy. Wasn’t that just part of aging?”
After undergoing a series of tests, Grant got some scary news: she would need to undergo open-heart surgery. The surgery was scheduled, and then the world shut down for COVID-19.
“This sudden break in our schedule proved a hidden blessing for Vince and me, a hard thing to say in the midst of such a global tragedy,” the singer shared. “I spent long hours in our backyard, walking barefoot in the grass—grounding myself, feeling the coolness of the earth beneath my feet, savoring every spring flower that bloomed.”
“I’d take deep breaths, meditating, feeling the breath of life that God breathed into us at the Creation,” she continued. “Everything felt more precious since my diagnosis. I was sensing God in each moment, realizing that if I could learn to live this way, I could live without fear, no matter what the future held. Isn’t that the essence of faith?”
Word got out about her surgery, and friends and fans all over the world sent their prayers to Grant ahead of her procedure.
“I could feel the peace of everyone’s prayers. I wasn’t scared,” the singer explained. “Not at all. It was like I had a West Texas wind at my back, carrying me through the entire process. When I was prepped for surgery, I felt so completely enveloped in the presence of God’s love, in the love that came through all those prayers.”
She continued, “That doesn’t mean it was easy. The surgery was a success. Still, afterward, I felt as if I’d been hit by a train. Tubes and wires were coming out of me in all kinds of places. I was bruised, my sternum was wired shut and my chest was stitched up.”
Grant has since made a full recovery, thanks to the help and support from her friends, family, and caregivers. She even takes time every day to pray for those who helped her in her time of need.
“Since my surgery, I’ve had an 8 p.m. alert on my phone, except when I’m performing (and, yes, my voice is back stronger than ever). ‘Pray for the caregivers,’ it says,” Grant shared. “For all the people in hospitals and elsewhere who care for the ailing and who’ve had to deal with the ongoing stress of this pandemic. And for the good people God put in my life who helped and cared for me. After all, what greater form of care is there than prayer? Especially when it comes from the heart.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Grant’s heart condition:
Christian singer Amy Grant underwent a successful heart surgery this week for a rare condition discovered earlier this year.
The condition is called PAPVR, which stands for partial anomalous pulmonary venous return.
According to the Mayo Clinic, PAPVR is “a heart defect present at birth (congenital) in which some of the pulmonary veins carrying blood from the lungs to the heart flow into other blood vessels or into the heart’s upper right chamber (right atrium), instead of correctly entering the heart’s upper left chamber (left atrium).”
Grant’s rep told PEOPLE, “She had open heart surgery to correct a condition from birth the doctors discovered during a heart checkup called PAPVR. Thankfully the doctor said it could not have gone better. We’re praying for a full and easy recovery over the next days, weeks and months to come.”
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