No Turning Back
Through the ebb and flow of hospital days, our routine has largely remained the same:
Morning meds
Breakfast together
Check bloodwork on the portal
Time in the Word and read Treasures in the Dark (which we laugh and cry and relate to more than we would have ever hoped)
Vitals
More meds
Morning rounds by the residents and attendings
Education for how to live with a transplant
More meds
Vitals
Lunch
Nap for J; Walk to a park for me
More meds
Vitals
Dinner
Evening walk
More meds
Vitals
Sleep for J; Go see the girls for me
It’s a rotation in the likeness of the movie Groundhog’s Day, where one day fades into another. Visitors and meals seem to break up the monotony and provide respite in the midst of the new ordinary.
Each day we ask when Jeremy can go home, and each day we are met with: his numbers are improving but we would like to see X increased/decreased more so let’s wait at least one or two more days.
The reports are good—improving—healing. Jeremy’s body continues to regain strength with the help of modern medicine and healthcare. And our souls continue to both weaken and miraculously strengthen as we realize how frailly weak we are and how desperately in need of God’s strength we remain.
The thoughts we center ourselves upon each day are: if God is who He says He is and our faith is completely reliant on Him being who He has promised Himself to be, then all we can “do”—read “be”—is to abide in Him. Even when circumstances do not align with what we want, His strength is revealed through our weakness. Jesus Himself was made perfect—through suffering and death and a resurrection.
We often build our life on all the things we think matter the most to us and we make such a big deal out of these little kingdoms of ours. Our identity, our health, our family, our house, our hobbies, our titles, or our life. And all of these things are precious but not eternal.
They’re reminders of our humanity and our humility as we turn each of those over to the One who gave them to us and say: whether you give or take away, I will choose to praise You and follow You. My trust and faith in who Christ is and who I am in Him because of Him does not depend on my job title, a specific person being in my life, or even my health or the health of a loved one. It doesn’t depend even on the foundations of the earth remaining stable. Suffering occurs and when the circumstances I do not want happen, this does not change God, His promises, or His love for my family or me.
There is a poem Elisabeth Elliot quotes in her book, Suffering is Never for Nothing, which you can also listen to on YouTube, where Elisabeth shares Grant Colfax Tuller’s words:
“My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me;
I do not choose the colors, He worketh steadily.
Oft times He weaveth sorrow and I, in foolish pride,
forget He sees the upper, and I the under side.
Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly,
shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful in the Weaver’s skillful hand,
as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.”
Elisabeth goes on to share:
“Everything that happens fits into a pattern for good. Suffering is never for nothing.”
It all fits into a pattern for good. Even the hard days. Even the suffering. The deaths. The grief. The natural disasters. The fractured moments. The weaknesses. They fit into a pattern for good and His glory. It all seems backwards—reversed. Death becomes life. Joy from suffering. Strength through weakness. Old made new.
But God, our beautiful Weaver, Author God, who keeps transforming and creating good things in and around and through us to display His glory among the nations. He is with us—present—giving grace to endure.
“I have decided to follow Jesus—no turning back. No turning back.”