I am taking a shift at the hospital with Cade right now, and he decided to take a nap so I'm sitting decked out in a hospital gown, mask and gloves to write. Cade was hospitalized Thursday night when he started to run a fever. After some tests, we've determined he has a normal cold, but he has literally zero white blood cells so his body just couldn't fight it off. We've been fever free for two days now, but are waiting for those counts to rise so we can be discharged. I am so thankful for a mother-in-law who is taking shifts with Chad and I so we can have a few hours at home with the girls. Somehow, I think we both feel really refreshed and grateful in a deeper way for the hours of weekend we have gotten together. That's the craziest part of this journey, finding joy in unlikely places.
I want to process some of the thoughts I've had the past two weeks because I want to do my best to let you all in on some of the heart work that is going on here. I want to speak hope in honesty, and by being vulnerable about the process to get to hope. I will probably voice many thoughts that have been discovered by many people before me, perhaps you have already stumbled onto them. But for me, this is my first true walk down the valley of the shadow of death, and I'm discovering Isaiah 45:3:
Dealing with disappointment is probably the hardest part of life. "A hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life" Proverbs 13:12.
In my quest to keep bitterness at bay, I am finding that the battle against disappointment is fierce. The darkest days in this journey for me so far have been when something I was praying and believing would happen didn't happen. When we prayed for results to be favorable histology and six weeks of treatment, we were given the staggering number of 36 weeks of treatment, and unfavorable histology. We were given statistics and numbers. We were given oncologists hedging their bets, carefully measuring words.
In stem cell transplants, patients endure five days of intense chemotherapy to essentially erase their bone marrow, and then are fed new stem cells that their body will re-grow. Their systems are erased- and they have to be vaccinated all over again. In some ways, that initial doctors report seems similar to my own stem cell transplant. It erased all of my theology. I spent 48 hours in a dark hole, and all I emerged praying was, "God, you have to teach me how and what to believe in. Rebuild my faith." And I can testify that He has graciously done just that. He has rebuilt it brick by brick, day by day, verse by verse, whisper by whisper.
This week when Cade and Chad left our driveway at 8 pm for the ER, I just fell to my knees weeping. It took my 24 hours to realize that I was grieving the hope I had for Cade to go through all of these weeks fever free, and without another blood transfusion. It wasn't life or death. It wasn't scan results. It was just two pieces that I had inserted into the Jenga puzzle of my faith and they had been taken away.
I came across this amazing youtube video from Bill Johnson on disappointment after I got to the other side of this wall, and felt so thankful for each point because it was already what the Holy Spirit had initiated with me. Gut level honesty. "Lord, I didn't think Cade would have a fever or another blood transfusion and now there is a huge suspicious thought in my mind that I cannot trust You." When I got that honest, I felt the Lord actually spoke back, "I never said that."
He never promised that. I prayed it. So now the quest is to determine what is actual promise. I am frequently discouraged by verses that say, "Do not be afraid for I am with you". I would rather they read, "Do not be afraid because its all just lies and smoke and mirrors." But that's not the case. Hard stuff happens in real ways. But the promise of His presence must be enough to calm our fears.
John Bevere posted something that was really important for me this week about how all turning to Jesus is repenting. I had to repent this week of agreeing with a lie. Agreeing with disappointment, and the lie that first reared its head in the Garden of Eden that God cannot be trusted. Repentance for me this week means running to Jesus and saying, "I am so sorry that I doubted You because what I could see went against what I thought You would do. I tried to control You."
When I give up trying to get an explanation, I get a peace in knowing that He sees the big picture. He sees the injustice. All the promises really are true. I felt Him say to my heart this week, "There really is a reward." There really is a reward for those who seek Him. It's not fake. I may never understand why Cade is going through this, why he got fever, why we were inpatient, and frankly, I am not even promised an explanation. I tried to come up with reasons, like "So we could love on other people" or "so we could enjoy our family life even more". All of those are probably very valid outcomes, but I am not sure there is wisdom in trying to understand the what and the why of God and life.
I think for me, the safest place is humility. I am not God. I cannot control, coerce, or manipulate Him. I can believe His promises. I can search His Word and pray it. I can believe in faith. But when I encounter mystery, I do not get to demand answers. I am promised His presence. And if it was good enough for everyone else in history who lived and died in faith for, then it can be enough for me. Many many souls have endured harder things than this and found Him faithful. I have to be among that number.
Here are some of the books I am reading now, each has been really important in this journey:
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero
The Good Fight of Faith by Alan Vincent
The Real Faith by Charles Price
And here is a worship set that absolutely blew my mind this week:
February 18
I want to process some of the thoughts I've had the past two weeks because I want to do my best to let you all in on some of the heart work that is going on here. I want to speak hope in honesty, and by being vulnerable about the process to get to hope. I will probably voice many thoughts that have been discovered by many people before me, perhaps you have already stumbled onto them. But for me, this is my first true walk down the valley of the shadow of death, and I'm discovering Isaiah 45:3:
"I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden wealth of secret places, So that you may know that it is I, The LORD, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name."
Darkness has secret treasure. I am finding that to be true. I still wouldn't choose it for myself, but He is good to His word.
To be concise, I've been wrestling the why and the what questions these past weeks. Eden, bless her heart, frequently says something like this: "I think God is letting this happen so we will learn to trust Him."
The dangerous part of that whole sentence is the fact that even a seven year old wants an answer to the "why" question and wants to know just what the hee-haw God is doing. Something in the human nature wants to know the mind of God. We want explanations.
I was thinking about the garden this week- when Adam and Eve were in the middle of it and had a bunch of trees with fruit and only one they couldn't eat. Maybe, the slippery slope to the first actual bite of the fruit was the question ruminating in Eve's mind. Why? Why is there a tree we can't eat? What is God doing with it? What does it mean for me? What is God up to?
It seems okay to ask that. But I'm actually wondering lately if all those questions amount, maybe in God's sight to a simple word: mistrust.
I hear God calling out across the cosmos: "Do you trust Me?" And my heart wants to yell back, "YES". And so He puts a tree in the middle of the garden and asks them not to eat it. He paints mystery into the landscape of life to make sure we get the peace that passes understand because we've "given up the right to understand"(Thank you Bill Johnson for all of the ways you've supplied me with amazing one-liners that knock the proverbial knees out from under a lot of lies.)
Y'all. I am finding it hard to create a theology in this journey. It doesn't fit. I am "searching the Scriptures thinking that I will find life in them," but realizing what I really need is to just come to Jesus. And give up my right to understand.
Thoughts like "Maybe God is letting this happen so that we can..." blah blah blah are actually dead ends. God is God. He loves me. I know He is in control. I know He can use whatever He wants to accomplish His purposes. Even this story, in the middle of it, can have off-shoots of growth and glory for hundreds or even thousands of people. I know He came as a man and healed every single person who came to Him and asked for it. I believe He came to destroy the works of the enemy, and built a church upon Himself so that we would continue to carry out that mission. I know we live in a sin sick world. I do not know why some things happen. I do not know why this has happened to us.
Nothing shoves a giant WHY in my face like being inpatient in a pediatric stem cell floor in the hospital. It seems easier to dismiss the idea of God, as many probably have, than believe in Him and see the incongruence of little children bowed down with disease in their bodies, even with praying parents. Part of the reason the hospital is so hard for me is because it challenges every portion of my theology. I thought I knew Him. I thought I could predict Him.
I've been trying to boil down my theology to the real tasty portions of it- like the syrupy goodness of what is actually there. I've come up with this: God loves us. And I get to love Him. My soul has an enemy who wants to strip me of the confidence of God's great love. I do not see the whole picture. I must keep my eyes on Jesus. I must grapple with disappointment and mystery in order to see real faith. I will be rewarded for this faith, as crazy as that is, with Jesus Himself.
Dealing with disappointment is probably the hardest part of life. "A hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life" Proverbs 13:12.
In my quest to keep bitterness at bay, I am finding that the battle against disappointment is fierce. The darkest days in this journey for me so far have been when something I was praying and believing would happen didn't happen. When we prayed for results to be favorable histology and six weeks of treatment, we were given the staggering number of 36 weeks of treatment, and unfavorable histology. We were given statistics and numbers. We were given oncologists hedging their bets, carefully measuring words.
In stem cell transplants, patients endure five days of intense chemotherapy to essentially erase their bone marrow, and then are fed new stem cells that their body will re-grow. Their systems are erased- and they have to be vaccinated all over again. In some ways, that initial doctors report seems similar to my own stem cell transplant. It erased all of my theology. I spent 48 hours in a dark hole, and all I emerged praying was, "God, you have to teach me how and what to believe in. Rebuild my faith." And I can testify that He has graciously done just that. He has rebuilt it brick by brick, day by day, verse by verse, whisper by whisper.
This week when Cade and Chad left our driveway at 8 pm for the ER, I just fell to my knees weeping. It took my 24 hours to realize that I was grieving the hope I had for Cade to go through all of these weeks fever free, and without another blood transfusion. It wasn't life or death. It wasn't scan results. It was just two pieces that I had inserted into the Jenga puzzle of my faith and they had been taken away.
I came across this amazing youtube video from Bill Johnson on disappointment after I got to the other side of this wall, and felt so thankful for each point because it was already what the Holy Spirit had initiated with me. Gut level honesty. "Lord, I didn't think Cade would have a fever or another blood transfusion and now there is a huge suspicious thought in my mind that I cannot trust You." When I got that honest, I felt the Lord actually spoke back, "I never said that."
He never promised that. I prayed it. So now the quest is to determine what is actual promise. I am frequently discouraged by verses that say, "Do not be afraid for I am with you". I would rather they read, "Do not be afraid because its all just lies and smoke and mirrors." But that's not the case. Hard stuff happens in real ways. But the promise of His presence must be enough to calm our fears.
John Bevere posted something that was really important for me this week about how all turning to Jesus is repenting. I had to repent this week of agreeing with a lie. Agreeing with disappointment, and the lie that first reared its head in the Garden of Eden that God cannot be trusted. Repentance for me this week means running to Jesus and saying, "I am so sorry that I doubted You because what I could see went against what I thought You would do. I tried to control You."
When I give up trying to get an explanation, I get a peace in knowing that He sees the big picture. He sees the injustice. All the promises really are true. I felt Him say to my heart this week, "There really is a reward." There really is a reward for those who seek Him. It's not fake. I may never understand why Cade is going through this, why he got fever, why we were inpatient, and frankly, I am not even promised an explanation. I tried to come up with reasons, like "So we could love on other people" or "so we could enjoy our family life even more". All of those are probably very valid outcomes, but I am not sure there is wisdom in trying to understand the what and the why of God and life.
I think for me, the safest place is humility. I am not God. I cannot control, coerce, or manipulate Him. I can believe His promises. I can search His Word and pray it. I can believe in faith. But when I encounter mystery, I do not get to demand answers. I am promised His presence. And if it was good enough for everyone else in history who lived and died in faith for, then it can be enough for me. Many many souls have endured harder things than this and found Him faithful. I have to be among that number.
Here are some of the books I am reading now, each has been really important in this journey:
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero
The Good Fight of Faith by Alan Vincent
The Real Faith by Charles Price
And here is a worship set that absolutely blew my mind this week:
February 18
Charis...thank you for walking the walk...keeping the faith...and reminding us that we don't always get the why. Even though everything inside of us screams for answers, you are revealing that trust may be hard, but it is essential. God loves our honesty...and He is so with you in yours! We love you guys!
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