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| photo credit: A to V images |
When one serves a God of miracles through the unexplained and medicine there is a happy medium of definite answers we strive for. My mind wants to sort it all out, but my heart knows life doesn't fall into nice, neat categories of answers sometimes.
Another trip to the hospital with Abby less than two years ago reminded me of that time with my newborn in a helpless, painful way; yet brought to surface things I had tried hard to forget.
There is what feels like a fog left in the aftermath of traumatic experiences. I don't fully want to engage it, yet the efforts to bury it four years later prove a unrealistic vanity or futile survival techniques. My inability to wrap my hands around something tangible leaves me gasping for air and wondering how to process through a painful time my healthy mind is diabolically trying to suppress and resurface together.
There are snapshots scattered in my head like out of place pictures. I sort through them tonight wondering if the weighty memories will crush me or if my shoulders have strengthened to the task of remembering... healing... telling that story.
I didn't think there was a box in my mind for when something went so terribly wrong because I didn't think I could possibly prepare for any more nightmares. I wonder tonight if I had been wrong all those years ago and maybe we had been more prepared than we thought? What if the God in the quiet moments had been building us up for this... the fights beyond our sight? It's not like a shot of steroids that speeds up the process, but more of a quiet increase that can only happen from finding that safe fold between HIS arms through our other hard places?
We want to be ready for those moments that shake us to the core but can feel helpless to do so. Could we be gaining the tools through other weighty circumstances? In order to reach out to a God of provision, comfort, and hope we need to be familiar with trusting HIM in the smaller, seemingly less significant steps along our paths. He promises to be close to the brokenhearted (Matthew 5), but we have to let Him ooze into the crevices of belief and unbelief in those moments of our deepest needs when our faith is tested.
He is faithful to fill in the gaps when our strength fails and the door between this life and the next is open or paper thin. In those moments what we believe about Heaven matters more than what we believe about earth and life. Going there with a loved one changes us if we let it. We grow to understand the faith of those who have gone before us. We lean into that faith we cannot see and trust in the hope we have no frame of reference to fully understand. In the darkness we choose to trust a God we know by heart or we will crumble into tiny pieces across the floor of a waiting space, hoping there will be enough heart left to get us out.
I think there were moments four years ago when I crumbled under the weight of my expectations of God and His role in my life. I expected HIM to prevent any more struggle than "life with Abby" rather than adjusting the suit of armor HE'd been infusing into my veins to prepare me for this day because of that journey. HE knew there would be darker days ahead. A grade four brain bleed didn't take him by surprise, nor did it upset his world or his plans for me. Whether he ordained it or allowed it matters far less today than it did back then because the answer no longer possesses the weight of the diagnosis in comparison to the disaster relief that followed.
I count it all joy (James 1) easier today because I get to see the other side. In the healing, I feel the miraculous deeply. Perhaps because I also live the brokenness of growing under HIS answer of "no" to our prayers of healing for my firstborn.
I hate to admit it, but I wasn't sure HE was a God who could be trusted to bring good when Millie was undergoing brain surgery. He hadn't changed, but I had unintentionally adjusted my view of "The Healer" to accommodate the disappointment I had felt with a diagnosis of disability again. My faith was fragile and I wasn't sure I could handle another "no". It was easier not to ask or hope.
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| photo credit: A to V images |
The further I get from that time, the easier it is to forget the reality that blood in the brain causes damage. My girl has brain damage but God in His sovereignty is allowing us to live a different story.
In honor of a God who chose healing, and a little girl who bears only a bump on her head in remembrance, would you share our story today? Not just cutting and pasting or posting on social media but with your voice. Please let us remember this snapshot in time with grateful hearts. May it serve to remind us HE still moves stones, He still works in the miraculous. This Thanksgiving I'm particularly thankful for friends who bravely entered our story in spite of the pain, so they can bear eyewitness and help us remember.
If you were a part of those dark days four years ago, don't forget. Help us tell it because you witnessed it, making it your story as well. May God be glorified today in the life of Millie Elizabeth, and may each who hear be strengthened in their journey to take a step closer to that same God who can be trusted in the good and the bad. He may not take us out of the struggle or prevent a life with pains, but he is faithful to bring us through and redeem it.
Though He doesn't guarantee to heal on this earth, stories like Millie's give us a glimpse into the beauty of eternity where he will wipe away every tear (Revelation 21:4). He will right all wrongs one day. Sometimes we get a win here on earth and sometimes our losses grow our longing for an ultimate win in eternity. Either way, there is hope in Christ. This is why we celebrate differently today. Thank you for celebrating her life with us!
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| photo credit: A to V images |
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