On this day last year, I got the news I had been waiting months for, but wasn’t expecting.
It didn’t start like a day for big news to unfold. Nothing I was expecting.
It looked like any other Sunday. At church, the coffee was hot enough to warm my hands through the cup. The sanctuary was full of energy. My friend’s voice at lunch carried that familiar mix of laughter and stories of his kids. Nothing about that day hinted that my life would change a month later. But late that afternoon, Jeff knocked on my door.
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That morning, I scanned a QR code at church to submit a prayer request for the team to pray for on the following Tuesday. I sent the link to myself for later. After lunch, I finally filled it out and took a breath before hitting submit. My prayer was “simple”. “Lord, send a living donor.” Kidney dialysis was taking more of my day, but it wasn’t sustaining my kidneys. On top of that, the waitlist still stretched two or three years down the road, and that was for a deceased donor, which isn’t ideal. I was tired, so tired that extra sleep wouldn’t fix it.
Hours later, my friend Jeff came over. I was expecting him. He gently knocked on my door. He was coming under the notion of helping me with some house repairs that need an extra hand. Well, that is what I thought. It was a gentle Christian pretense.
We talked like we always do. Home projects. Life. Nothing heavy. Then he pulled out his phone and showed me a book cover he had made with AI. Not Left Standing. I smiled, thanked him for the clever take on my original book cover for Left Standing, and completely missed the kidney used as the letter G. I was so obvious that I even got up to grab something from the kitchen as we continued to talk.
Jeff’s expression shifted before his words did. As I made my way back, he told me.
“Chad, I am a living kidney donor match for you; you are no longer left standing.”
I found my balance and gently sat on my coffee table, taking in his words. For a moment, I couldn’t move. I was initially in disbelief, but then immediately thought back to my prayer request, hours earlier. Can an answered prayer take 120 minutes to “bake”? He also mentioned the possibility of a cross-match. I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but I understood this was an answered prayer: not only did I have one living-kidney donor, I had two, even though I had only prayed for one.
Jeff could have given his kidney to me directly. Instead, his went to someone else, and a kidney from another donor came to me, which was a better match by 1 of the indicators UNMC looks for. Two donors. Two recipients. Two families whose lives changed two days apart in late October. Jeff does not know the name of his recipient. I do not know the name of my donor. But our stories are tied together in ways that words don’t fully capture.
A year later, I’ve learned a few things:
God hears. God listens. God answers. Not always quickly. Not always in the way we hope. Sometimes not at all. I had prayed for a living donor. He answered with a friend, a fake book cover, and a cross-match donor I may never meet. He answered on a day that looked like every other day.
This answered prayer belonged to more than me. My family. My friends. People who prayed without ever seeing my dialysis set up in my bedroom or how completely fatigued I looked while walking the aisles at a grocery store. People I don’t even know who believed in me when I was losing the ability to maintain any resemblance of strength. This was their answered prayer too.
And I know Jeff. A man who dislikes needles went through every test, some of them twice, and continued when he could have stopped during the months prior to telling me. Some people help with words, others help with actions. He did both.
Jeff, thank you will never be big enough. I will say it anyway.
To my donor, whose name I do not know, my gratitude has no end. And to the stranger living with Jeff’s kidney, you are equally part of this story too. You matter more than you know.
One year ago, I was hoping. Today, I am dialysis-free, and Sidney (the kidney) is hard at work.
And now, 31 days from my one-year kidney transplant milestone. I think back to what I endured before and after this transplant. I don’t miss dialysis. I don’t miss being tired 24/7. I don’t miss carrying a box of dialysis solution from the basement to my bedroom and setting up the machine. I don’t miss the dietary restrictions I had.
I prayed for a miracle. That prayer was answered 200% the same day (though God was working behind the scenes the entire year), even before the church’s prayer team would have a chance to pray for me two days later.
So many blessings in the year between September 21, 2025 AND September 21, 2026.
Related Posts:
Living Donor Match – Answered Prayers (the day it all started)
The Divine Timing of the Kidney Transplant
When Your Body Fails: Faith, Fear & a Kidney Transplant (Chad’s podcast episode)
The Puzzle Pieces Came Together
Dear Younger Me
Not Left Standing (Jeff‘s version)
Is this God’s Will for Me? (Jeff‘s version)
We thank God everyday for those blessings!!