Into the Unknown

A picture I unknowingly took before things went south. 

         Wow. I did not think this would be so hard to write about. As a matter of fact, I don't really want to write about it at all, I'd rather just pretend that it wasn't happening, that I wasn't suspended in the terrible "unknown" where the good is as likely to happen (maybe even more so) than the bad, but that is exactly where I am.

    You may be wondering what exactly is going on, well, I would like to know that, too, but I will tell you the little that I know. I want to write it all down, every detail, because regardless of how it turns out, I already know this is a memorial stone. So here is all I know.

   Monday I made (or thought I did) appointments at the eye doctor for the kids and me. Wednesday, the day the appointments were, I called to double-check the time. And was informed that I did *not* have any appointments. There had been a mix-up. A little frustrated, but I was able to reschedule for Friday. We ended up seeing a new optometrist, and he wanted to dilate the kids' eyes. Jocelyn wears glasses, but Carson has 20/20 vision so I thought it was a little odd. But the optometrist felt it was a good idea to do it every few years and Carson has never had it done, so we went ahead. I have had my eyes dilated sooo many times, so I knew exactly what to expect. Which is why when the doctor repeated part of the exam I felt my stomach drop. He asked Carson to look up and to the right with his right eye. And stared. And then asked him to do it again. As soon as the doctor finished looking he said he wanted to "get a few pictures". Again, not the norm. He led him to a machine in a different room and I knew for certain something was off when he could not seem to get a shot of a very specific something. When I saw the images come up on the monitor in the area, even though I am not well acquainted with how the back of an eye should look, I was well aware the large black dot on the image was not right.

      The doctor was wonderful. He informed me my intuition was correct, the chorodial nevus, the official name for the black dot, was not normal. It is like a mole on the back of your eye, and while they are not rare, it isn't something they want to see, because like a mole on your skin, they must be monitored and are often the first sign of cancer. Never something that a mom wants to hear. I was trying not to panic, and I know it seems like there wasn't much at that point to be concerned about, but as soon as the doctor mentioned that they need to be monitored to ensure they aren't cancerous I flashed back to over 10 years ago, to the last time that I was hearing a doctor mention the possibility of cancer in my son's eye.  And, then the doctor proceeded to tell me that this particular chorodial nevus did not have the halo they like to see, or the white dots, in other words, my son might have a common condition, but it was presenting in an uncommon, or concerning, way. Kind of like if a mole has irregular borders, or is growing.

     I did manage to find the presence of mind to ask about the concerns we had when Carson was little-could it be possible that issue had anything in common with this one? Instead of allaying my fears, the doctor immediately started taking notes on everything I said. He did assure me that he was directing us to the best specialist he knew, and that it was important to convey all that information to the doctor at the referral. He did mention cancer, again, and the importance of catching and treating the type of cancer that can be caused by this type of thing as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, much of what he said was kind of fuzzy around the edges, because I just kept hoping he would say, "But I'm sure that is not what this is." He didn't say that.

     And that is where we are. I'm waiting for a referral appointment to find out if my son has cancer. In his eye. Which if he does, he will lose. And cancer that can metastasize and be fatal. I am *really* trying not to think about that. Why do I want to remember this pain, this uncertainty, this feeling of someone holding me by the upper arms, pushing me down? Because God is good. In this place called the "unknown" He is very much known and knowing. I firmly believe that our appointments on Wednesday never materialized because we needed to see this doctor, today. He was the one who would strongly urge dilation, a procedure that I would have declined, except for his gentle insistence. And I have no idea if Carson has cancer, only God does at this point. But the thing is, this memorial stone will be there either way-and I don't want to forget that God is the same, whether my son is healthy and whole, or if he is at this very moment headed towards a painful medical ordeal. I don't want to forget that I need to cling to Him every moment the way I am clinging to Him right now. When the end of this particular chapter of my testimony closes, I don't want to dismiss it as "nothing". God is working here, He is working now, He is working always. And while I can't see how this will turn out, He can. And when He puts the finishing touches on this part of the story I don't want to forget any part of it, because all of it is in His control and He is working it all together for my good and His glory.

     I picked a word for 2020 a few weeks ago. It is "flourish". I always base my word on the Scripture I choose, this year it is Jeremiah 17:7-8:

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“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in Him.

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They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.”

     I don't know if this is a year of drought. I don't know if the heat will come. My frail human spirit prays that it won't. But I do know that the unknown is the very best place to trust, and confidence in the Lord will never be misplaced. I know because He always keeps His promises. 

Faith Doesn't Mean You're Fine

 

    So, I know for a few people who are close to me that the things that I said about 2017 not necessarily being the antidote to the woes of 2016 has proven true in some really awful ways. We are only a couple of weeks into the first month of the new year and yet so many things have already gone so wrong. The things that have happened will for certain leave this year etched in their memories and it isn't even 5% of the way over yet, so there are still plenty of opportunities for the other 95% to hold its fair share of unexpected, sometimes life-changing, and very possible negative, events.

     Personally, our family is still dealing with the aftermath of things that happened in 2016 and didn't magically disappear when the clock struck midnight on January 1st. My husband was seriously injured at work and can't really begin to heal or even recover until he has extensive knee surgery. Which still isn't scheduled, even though he was injured in November. We are just waiting while he lives every day in pain. And it is so hard. We don't know when he will be able to return to work, or if the promised recovery period will be as arduous as we have been told. We are on "hold"-not knowing what the next few months will bring.

   And it is seems like the right thing to say is that we are okay. We believe that the Lord holds the future, that He hasn't overlooked any of these things that have completely turned our every day routines on their heads and cut up our future plans to ribbons. We know He has a plan, and better yet, a purpose.

  But it still hurts. Some days, fear or worry, or both, rob us of sleep. We get up in the morning not knowing what the day holds, trying to convince ourselves things will get better, holding our breath without daring to think that they might possibly get worse. That maybe the events that have crushed us yesterday, last week, last month, will be something that we would gladly suffer again in order to avoid the devastation that lies just out of sight. Because, as my dear husband loves to say, "the only easy day was yesterday".

    So where does the hope come in? What good does faith do in these circumstances? Aren't we supposed to "grin and bear it"? When "sorrows like sea billows roll", aren't we supposed to say, "it is well with my soul"?  Doesn't it seem that our response should be, when hearing of our troubles well-meaning friends inquire as to our well-being, that we are, "fine"? Just, fine, thank you. And be sure to follow up with the certainty that this is the Lord's will, that we are confident that better days lie just ahead? We are fine, just fine. But is that really what faith requires of us? To profess, in the worst of times that we are "fine"?

     "Be gracious to me, Lord,

because I am in distress;

my eyes are worn out from angry sorrow—

my whole being as well. 

 

Indeed, my life is consumed with grief

and my years with groaning;

my strength has failed

because of my sinfulness,

and my bones waste away." 

Psalm 31:8-9 HCSB

 And it wasn't just David...

"Why did I come out of the womb

to see only struggle and sorrow,

to end my life in shame?"

Jeremiah 20:18 HCSB

Figuring this is just an Old Testament condition? How about Paul?

"I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience is testifying to me with the Holy Spirit that I have intense sorrow and continual anguish in my heart." Romans 9:1-2 HCSB

What? Faith doesn't mean that you're fine? Nope. Sometimes, life is just hard. And the Lord doesn't expect us to paste on a smile when crappy things happen and pretend that we don't care, that we aren't shaken, that we are immune to the sorrows of this broken, fallen world. See, in saying that we shouldn't wallow in our grief, which is true, that we shouldn't mourn as those that have no hope, which is also true, we have somehow translated those things to mean that we can't stop for two seconds and say, "This is hard. I don't want to do this! I am not sure what to do. " That we can't shed tears of anger, or sorrow, or just being profoundly overwhelmed.

  Life is hard. Sin is real and it means that bad things will happen-both to good people and bad people. That sometimes we will bring difficult consequences down on ourselves, but sometimes we will truly be the victim of troubles that we had no hand in creating. And it is okay to not be okay with that.

  Just because we have eternal hope in Jesus doesn't mean we must pretend that we live on a different planet when the world is falling apart. As a believer I DO have faith that God is working, even in the most awful of times. But it doesn't mean that I can never say that something is just.so. hard.

    The difference is, that I know the One who wants to hear my complaints, the One who wants to bear my burdens, the One who wants to ease my sorrows. And in the midst of my hard times, I can say,

"I must tell Jesus all of my trials,

I cannot bear these burdens alone;

In my distress He kindly will help me,

He ever loves and cares for His own.

• I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus!
  I cannot bear my burdens alone;
  I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus!
  Jesus can help me, Jesus alone.
• Tempted and tried I need a great Savior,
  One who can help my burdens to bear;
  I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus:
  He all my cares and sorrows will share." -Elisha Hoffman
•   So, feel free to stop saying you are fine when your dreams are burning to ashes. The Lord doesn't ask you to say that you're okay when you couldn't possibly be. He just asks that we remember that He is always there, that He loves us more than we could possibly fathom, and that He will make a way-though the reality is that it may take far longer than we want, and there may be more tragedies than triumphs as you go.
• "Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,

  
  

      who daily bears our burdens.

  20 

  Our God is a God who saves;

      from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death." Psalm 68:19-20 NIV
• The escape from death may not come this side of heaven, but we are promised eternal life through Christ. So even though your faith doesn't necessarily mean you are fine, it does mean you have a future. And it is pretty darn glorious...

The Happy Ending Starts in the Middle

via

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was beautiful, sweet, and kind. She grew up in a wonderful, loving family. She went to college and met a wonderful, kind, handsome man while at school. They both obtained degrees, and then had a wonderful wedding. They bought a picturesque home and always kept it clean. Not too long after they had beautiful, sweet, obedient children together and lived to a ripe, old age.

Doesn't that just sound like the perfect story? It is the, for many, the representation of what the "perfect" life would look like. I, personally, wouldn't know for sure-having never come close to anyone's ideal of perfection. However, even though it seems to have all the elements required for Utopia, it is a little boring.

It certainly isn't a story that I would want to read again and again. There is no climax, no action, no "hold-your-breath" moments. There is no angst, no cliff-hanger, nothing that leaves you yearning to find out how it all ends.

Because you don't really care. You are in no way invested in the characters, or the story. You can't identify with them-who lives such an idyllic life? You wouldn't really want to know them, or be friends with them-it would just make you jealous and insecure.

But why is this always what most of us claim to desire? Maybe this is what we really want, but somehow, I have reason to doubt the veracity of that.

And where is God in all of this anyway?

We serve an amazing God: author of wonders and miracles beyond our comprehension, the jaw-dropping, nail-biting kind. The Red Sea dividing, time-changing, food-multiplying kind. The climatic kind. The story-changing kind. If there is no antagonist, there can be no hero.

The stories that we really admire the most aren't the "perfect" kind. They are the ones of courage, faith, hope in the face of certain defeat. We devour tales of Ruth, Esther, Rahab, Corrie Ten Boom, Beth Moore. We delight in their success against the odds. We love the stories that shake us to tears, biting our lips until the conflict is resolved.

We love these heroines for the trials they have faced, for the imperfections they have, and for the faith that they cultivate. They, and so many others, have confronted seemingly insurmountable odds, and still they have persevered and arrived triumphant on the other side.

But we claim to not want that in our own lives. We want the fairytale; but we don't want to face any dragons. No evil stepmothers, or wicked witches, please. We want the ball gowns, and the palace, and of course, the handsome prince; but we would prefer to never deal with frogs, or poverty or -heaven forbid- any cleaning!

We want to be counted with the women of Hebrews 11, but we don't want to deal with barrenness, or death, or war, or famine.

We want the dream without the drama, the glamour without the gore. In essence, we want to skip the parts that make the story so meaningful.

What if we realized it is the hard parts that cause us to be drawn to these tales? What if our hard parts are what draw people to us? What if-just consider- it is my imperfections, my hard times, my trials, that allow the light of Christ to shine most brightly in my life?

"If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness."
2 Corinthians 11:30

"He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. " 2 Corinthians 12:9


Why do we want to skip the hard parts? Because we are selfish, and human and discontented. Because we are fearful and lack faith. I don't want to desire to go through life without trial or hardship. That is the illuminating part of the story-you really discover a character's motivation, their true worth, and what they are really made of, when they have to persevere through trials.

No one asks for hard times. But we need to recognize that the "testing of your faith develops perseverance" (James 1:2). And to live a life that says:

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. "




There isn't really a happy ending if there hasn't been been some hard times in the interim between the beginning and the finish. It is that stark contrast that makes us appreciate the satisfaction of hard-won contentment. It is the comparison of dark to light that really helps us see that the happy ending is really only happy if there was a little sadness, a little hardship, a little unforeseeable obstacle, to make it all worthwhile. Really the happy ending starts before we can even see where this is all going...