
The last few days were brutal. And yet I have said that phrase over and over and over the last 10 years…… Hemorrhages, transfusions, infections, pneumonia, pulmonary edema, de-saturation, and pain, oh the pain.
How Lord, how, could I possibly survive another day? How much more do you want me, want my child, to take? How can I find a sliver of an unexpected miracle in this?
I flood heaven’s gates with these questions while pouring my grievances out to the Lord. The analogy of a soldier running through my mind….
I go to battle every day.
Each morning I put on my uniform, apply my war paint, and step into a minefield of unknowns. Every unexpected explosion brings its own fresh version of hell.
Today was a gruesome reminder as I stared into the bloody crater now existing in 32 staples running across the length of my child’s abdomen. I have witnessed events I would give anything to “unsee.” Multiple hemorrhages from different sites of my child’s malnourished body. Feverish deliriums. Screams of agony, hour after hour.
Death looming around every corner…
I never understood how men in war could experience the horrors they did and survive emotionally. After watching and enduring Rebecca’s torture, I realize there is an acceptance to the battle you are facing as well as a certain numbness. You have no other choice but to face the abomination in front of you and pray you make it through alive.
I am certainly not alone in these trenches, there are plenty of others fighting beside me—trying to rationalize what possible meaning could exist behind this … war?
Recently, I read the phrase, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” Contrary to that belief though, I have found numerous atheists in hospitals. Most of which consist of parents crying out to a God who seems deaf to their pleas—mute to their hearts.
My hospital neighbor from Africa has a baby with brain cancer and now failing kidneys thanks to a medicinal side effect. This mother worked hard to pay off her mortgage before having children. She will now lose her home as a result of the expense of her child’s chronic illness.
My PICU neighbors had a teenager born with severe autism. Although unable to speak, her family recognized pain in her expression. Turned out, their child had pancreatic cancer. After a horrific recovery, the parents were told a mistake was made—the pathologist was not given the results during surgery and her cancer was not fully removed. Another procedure would be necessary after her body properly heals while her aggressive cancer continues to flourish.
A friend we made at the Ronald McDonald House lost a biological child to leukemia. They adopted another child only to learn of that child’s diagnosis of the very same disease their biological child just died from.
5 patients coded last night from COVID in less than 3 hours – without their family comforting them in their last moments.
Blow upon unthinkable blow.
There are no words for the sorrow I feel walking these halls; it presses upon me to the point of breathlessness.
How do I believe in a Creator who oversees such bloodletting, such cruel and incomprehensible carnage?
Is my God excessively cruel, or do I believe there is a purpose in this version of cruelty I am enduring?
This is every warrior’s thought and yet every warrior still has a choice. Do we follow our Commander into the fray—the hailstorm of gunfire? Even if it makes no sense from the view of a field wrought with slaughter?
But maybe that is the key to blind-faith—the realization that my vantage point is limited, incomplete.
I am not the general—I am merely a private. I can only see what is directly in front of me while my general, my omnipotent, all-knowing God sees every field of every battle at all times.
And, even better, this same God knows that it is He who will win this war.
When David was going to battle against the Philistines, David inquired of the Lord what to do, and He responded, “As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the poplar trees, move quickly, because that will mean the Lord has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army” (2 Samuel 5:24).
Yes, I am going into battle with Rebecca’s body, but I am not entering this battlefield alone.
My Lord has gone before me, and is preparing a miraculous way for me to win this unexpected war.
Thank you for your continual prayers on behalf of our war-weary family.
We are forever grateful,
C