Every day I’m grateful
to be alive and share my life with such a wonderful bunch of rascals.
Our lives would be very
different today without any one of them. It’s something I find difficult to
fathom but end up thinking about more than I should. It’s all because of
biliary atresia and the resulting liver transplant Sarah received nearly six
years ago.
Yet, we’ve been one of
the fortunate families. Our baby received a new gift of life. She fought hard
to reach that point, but she did. And she’s still with us.
So many families are
still grieving the loss of their child weeks, months and years later. What
would they have grown up to be? What would they have accomplished? The only answer
to those questions is blank pages.
So I understand how
truly blessed we are to have our family of six still intact. Our marriage
survived the tough times of many nights separated by hospital stays. We
survived trying to reconnect as a family after long absences. But its things
like today that throw it all up in the air again.
No, Sarah isn’t
seriously ill and we’re not looking at an extended hospital stay like that
blasted infection from last spring. It’s only a biopsy and yet whenever I hear
that word now I consider all the possibilities and not necessarily just the
positive outcomes.
I consider the very real
possibility of a 4-day hospital stay. I consider, ever momentarily, something
happening like last year when the infection wreaked havoc with Sarah’s body for
more than 40 days and left our doctors scratching their heads much of the time.
And this is where the
feeling of utter helplessness sets in. It sinks it’s claws deep into my tissue,
even my bones and lets me know, I’m really not in control of Sarah’s health,
her future.
She could live to be 100
years old and never need another liver transplant.
She could require
another transplant at 14, or 20, or 40. Would those be as successful as her
first one?
As the parent of a liver
kid, I honestly grapple with all of these thoughts. In the end, God is the only
one that knows Sarah’s future. I’m still learning to live in the here and now
because tomorrow is never guaranteed. For any of us. Still, I wish that feeling
of utter helplessness would find another place to live. Permanently.
There are certain life experiences that no one gets except for those few who've shared them. There are good endings and bad endings, and for Christians we know we can't lean on our own understanding which, unfortunately, doesn't always make the circumstance any easier. We're weak in the flesh, often wild in our death-metal imaginations, and sometimes we can't find hope even though it's omniscient like the Lord's presence. Reality becomes unbearable and even distant - because we just don't want to handle it anymore. We take on a shroud of sorts, operating in a grey place, without both light and the threat of darkness. And then God touches us. We may even resist because things just are out of control within and without us. But He persists, and the fear unravels. We look to Him and know life belongs to Him. Not us. We have it because He gave it to us. We must still our souls and once again conclude He is God. Everything is up to Him, not us. We pray, awkward, uneasy, reaching for hope and life and truth and all He offers us. And wait. And once again we know there's a reason for it all, and it doesn't always - maybe never - make sense to us, but because of Him, it's right. Jesus loves you all, Kirk. Endlessly and with power. That's where our hope and help come from. Period.
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