It’s Monday of the week we expect to hear the results of Chris’s biopsy, and I thought I’d hop on with some thoughts. I can’t let Chris be the only one with a platform!
Many of you have expressed anxiety about this waiting period and sympathy for how hard the waiting is. Oddly, the waiting hasn’t been hard at all. Maybe it’s because these days feel like our last before things really start to change. Also, and maybe more looming, hearing a medical declaration about Chris’s life and what we should or can expect for it, feels like the beginning of a steep descent. We know a valley is ahead. We don’t know where it will lead exactly. We know it will be deep, and we know it will be dark. And we fear that with medical knowledge stated clearly to us, we will have a harder time holding on to a sense of hope.
A friend texted me last week and said this: I will be praying for your appointment in a few days. I’m going to pray that you’ll walk away from it with more hope than when you got there.
What a profound thought. I felt my mind blown open with possibility. Appointment day—hearing the words spoken to us that we already know will be so heavy—may not end up being the hardest day of our lives thus far. Or, even if it is the hardest day, it doesn’t have to be devastating. I had only been imagining that day as dark and despairing. But the LORD will be there. How will he show himself? These are the things I can think about and imagine as I anticipate the appointment. What will the Lord do in our hearts that day? What will he bring to mind? With what will he comfort us? What will he speak to us about himself? How will he simply calm us with his love? I believe he will be with us. And I believe his hope can come in so many forms.
I would not have put us here. I would never have willingly offered this—the seeming stability of our family—to be changed in these ways and in the ways we do not yet know. But here we are. Our hearts are open. What do you want to give us, Lord? Deepen us. Transform us. Open our eyes. Open our ears. Fill us. We want all that you have to give us.