Heart Transplant At Age 19!

Most people aren’t aware of the fact that I had a heart transplant when I was 19 years old. Our family physician had matter-of-factly informed me that although I looked fairly healthy on the outside, my heart was ravaged by disease and was desperately sick. I had my whole life ahead of me, but now it was in jeopardy.

I grew up in Minnesota and lived for the first 12 years in St. Cloud, our family then moved to Moorhead in 1969. In my growing up years we (my two brothers and one sister) did the normal kid stuff. Living in the country gave us the opportunity to play in the sandpit and go squirrel hunting. I was a young “mad scientist” – I loved chemistry sets and attempted making rocket fuel and other weird concoctions. We went rabbit and pheasant hunting, we lived for duck hunting, we couldn’t wait for it to snow so we could go snowmobiling, and we looked forward to spending time at a resort in the summer so we could go swimming, skiing and fishing. Our parents expected us to work hard (we must have considered it “inhumane treatment”) but they also entrusted us with responsibilities that most kids today don’t have the privilege of experiencing. We drove the boat, we raced snowmobiles ($35.00 was my total life’s winnings), my brother and I had purchased six cars by the time we were out of high school and we overhauled some of them. As teenagers we were allowed to make the 150 mile trip by ourselves to our grandparents’ house for hunting trips.

I was the type of kid that didn’t get into major trouble or become addicted to drugs. But even though I was quieter and pretty much non-rebellious, somewhere in my junior year of high school I sort of lost it for awhile. My hair got long (pony tail long), my grades went down some and I even got drunk a couple of times. My older brother and I took a course in high school in “Transcendental Meditation” and for awhile I did the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi chanting thing. I had the typical teenager lead-foot syndrome and got a couple of speeding tickets. The worst thing I can remember doing? One Sunday morning a few of us went to the place where I was employed and we ripped off a bunch of car parts. My friend and I were trying to pull the tires off one of the vehicles – we loosened the lug nuts and I pulled – but when I pulled the car fell down and my wrist was clamped between the tire and the fender. But my friend was strong enough to lift up the car just enough for me to pull my hand out.

In 1973 I graduated from Moorhead High. Our team mascot was a potato – we were the Spuds! (When other teams played us their posters read, “Mash the Spuds!”) In the fall of that year I married Kay and she was working in a nursing home as an aide and I was working at Dayton’s department store in Fargo as a stock clerk. Our little upstairs apartment was small but it was ours – the rent was $88.00 per month. Our car was a 1960 Ford Falcon – painted canary yellow with one of those sprayed-on black vinyl tops. The gas pedal was held on with a coat hanger wire and when you hit a bump too hard the driver’s window would go “kerthunk!” and fall off the track and down into the door (you always carried a pair of pliers with you so you could pull it back up). Not really knowing what to do with our lives, sometime in the early summer of 1974 Kay and I joined the Uncle Sam’s Army. Kay wanted to go into dentistry and I wanted to go into computers – but Army schooling would have split us up for too long, so we compromised – we became military police! (If you ever want to challenge my wife to a marksmanship contest with an M-16, you might just lose). If I remember correctly, we officially enlisted sometime in June of 1974, but we did not have to go to basic training until September 22nd, so we had most of the summer to be with family and friends. (We would spend our first anniversary apart – me at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and Kay at Ft McClellan, Alabama. The day we got back together in Fort Gordon Georgia after 2 months of basic training was like a scene right out of Hollywood – but no time to tell that story now.)

But it became very apparent that summer of ’74 that I was sick and I began to realize that something was not right inside of me and that I needed help desperately. But the disease that was ravaging my heart was a special type of malady and needed the attention of an extraordinary doctor. You see, my sickness was not physical in nature, but spiritual. And our family physician was none other than the Great Physician, Jesus Christ Himself. Sometime in the summer of 1974 I had been reading a best-seller written by Hal Lindsey titled, “The Late Great Planet Earth.” On the front cover it said, “A penetrating look at the incredible prophecies (of the Bible) involving this generation.” I was captivated by the fact that the Bible, written so many centuries before, could have implication in the generation in which we were then living. At the end of one of the chapters in “The Late Great Planet Earth,” the author wrote, “As you read this book you may have reached the point where you recognize your inability to live in a way that would cause God to accept you. If this is the case, you may speak to God right now and accept the gift of Christ's forgiveness. It’s so simple. Ask Christ to come into your life and make your life pleasing to God by His power.” I don’t exactly remember where it was or what month it was, but I remember praying that simple prayer and how, for the very first time, Jesus became so very real to me. He took out my diseased heart of sin and gave me a brand new heart! We had attended church regularly when I was growing up but, as most kids did, I found it boring and I hated it. But suddenly I couldn’t get enough of church and I still remember going out to my parents and asking them for a Bible.

I am now 52 years old. I have never ever regretted making that decision to ask Jesus to come into my life. Although many times I have stumbled and fallen along the way, He has never ceased to pour out His mercy and love and joy into my life. His grace truly is amazing! I am still dealing with many shortcomings in my life (I call them "warts"), and believe me, I have plenty of them! At times I can get moody and depressed (ask my wife), I can be sarcastic and unforgiving (ask my mom and brothers and sister), I can do some stupid things (ask my co-workers), I can be impatient and sometimes a little uncaring of sheep (ask my church congregation), and there have been many times when I have had to ask people for their forgiveness. But Jesus has patiently changed me from the inside out and my life is dramatically different from what it used to be. And I owe it all to the One Who suffered the horrors of Calvary for my sin.

My friend Ken H. was wearing a T-Shirt at church one Sunday and I loved the simple saying on the front. “I am the wretch the song refers to.” The familiar church hymn “Amazing Grace” was written by John Newton, a slave ship captain, who was radically transformed in 1748 by the immeasurable love of God. He then went on to testify for the rest of his life about the One Who “saved a wretch like me.” The word “wretch” is defined as “someone who is deplorably unfortunate or an unhappy person.” I, Dan Vander Ark, was the wretch the song refers to! The same Jesus that turned around the life of John Newton is the same Jesus that changed my life – and He is the same Savior that can bring joy and peace and purpose to your life! He is alive today and is still in the business of transforming lives!

Is your life empty? If you were to die tonight do you have a certainty in your heart that you would go to heaven? Is your heart ravaged by the disease called “sin?” Simply ask Jesus to come into your heart today and forgive you of your sins – He loves YOU more than you will ever know!

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