Be Thou My Vision
We were standing with a church in the Middle East singing “Be Thou My Vision,” when I looked over and saw Jeremy’s eyes glowing yellow.
About 10 years before, we had been sitting in church in South Asia when an earthquake occurred. This time, the ground wasn’t shaking but I knew in that moment everything was about to shift.
“Heart of my own heart,
Whatever befalls—
Still be my Vision,
Oh, Ruler of all.”
We had just arrived in our new country 9 months earlier in January. We had plans to retire in this country, dreams that the home we were living in would be one our girls would come back to while in college and bring their friends, and a vision to meet people from around the world and befriend them.
Jeremy went to a doctor to get his yellowing eyes and skin checked out and long story short, we ended up needing to come back to the States in less than 2 weeks.
Jeremy was in the hospital in the Middle East for almost 2 weeks before being accompanied by a doctor on a plane and readmitted to a hospital in the U.S. We found out he has a chronic autoimmmune disease that caused a chronic liver disease and end stage cirrhosis of the liver. He will now need a liver transplant to save his life. He is currently being assessed and evaluated to get on the liver transplant list.
Our church family, families, coworkers, organization, and friends on both sides of the world have cared so well for us! We couldn’t get through this time without everyone and your prayers, encouragement, texts, food, gifts, and random acts of kindness dropped to our doorstep or provided for our family.
Our family has felt deep grief over the last few weeks and we have prayed and begged God to heal Jeremy. But God, in His good sovereignty, has allowed it to unfold. And we are learning to trust the heart of the Father and His goodness and intentions for our life.
Jeremy and I both grew up on farms and our grandfathers were farmers. We have started to say: we have to trust the heart of the Farmer. He is establishing His kingdom and church and garden in ways that are beyond us. We are only a seed in the garden He is planting and He knows where and how we will grow best and bear fruit. We can trust that even when everything feels like destruction, like a seed planted in the ground, He will water us and bring us back to the light.
This liver transplant will mean we do not get to live overseas any longer. That means our jobs, house, car, country, and life will all change. Plus I will also watch my husband and our girls will watch their father get sicker. It’s a season we didn’t ask for but the one we are in. And we are trusting God to provide and to produce life in time—even if the present circumstances currently feel like death to our old life. We have hope. We always have Hope in Jesus, the good Author of our story and Perfecter of our faith, who is really good at resurrecting dead things to life.