When It's My Child...

Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge over Troubled Water

 Be careful what you pray for.

I prayed to feel the suffering of my friends who are hurting this Christmas season. I prayed that I would be able to understand the hurt of those who are hurting this year. I meant it, and I don't regret praying it. But it has hit home to me tonight, and I realize that it is different when the pain gets personal.

It is different when it's my child.

Chloe just had another seizure.

And she's eleven hours away from me. This is the first time I haven't been there to hold my baby, to smooth her damp hair back from her forehead, or bend to kiss her cheek. She is 18, but to me she is three, just like Zoe and Caroline are, in my heart and my head. I sit here helpless, my heart pounding and my throat dry. I am weary of these seizures. So broken that my lovely girl has to have them, that her life is upended by the betrayal of her own body.

Oh dear God. I am on the phone with Zoe. She put the phone to Chloe's ear. My baby is crying. She is so confused like she always is. She is crying so hard and now I am crying too but she can't see me cry, thank God. Zoe is being very brave and calm and steady. I hear her saying the same things I say, in my voice, over and over. Soothing, calm, steadying.

"You're okay, Chloe. You're okay. You're doing good. You're doing good. You are okay, honey."

God, why?
God, this is my child.
This is my perfect baby, this child that is lying on this bed in this hospital hours away from me, afraid and confused and feeling bruised and sore.

I don't want this for her.
I remember my grandfather's seizures, how they robbed him, how they broke his spirit time and time again.
I remember my seizures, the ones that let the doctors find my brain tumor.
I DO NOT WANT THIS FOR MY CHILD, LORD.

"Now is the time to worship."
WHAT?
I hear the words again, quiet and sure.
I know they come from Him, but I rebel, suddenly. Suddenly, when it's my child, I find fury rising up within me.
No, Lord. No. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of watching her hurt. Seeing the way the seizures break her.
I do not want to worship at this moment.

No.

At this moment, I want to rage.
I want to scream.
I want to wail.
I want to keen.
I want to hit.
I want to run.
I want to numb.
I want to cry.
And cry and cry and cry and cry and cry forever.

What I do not want to do is worship.
Praise. Sing songs. Pray prayers. Read the Bible.

I sit tense in my chair, waiting for Zoe to call back. She calls. She says they gave Chloe some Ativan and it is helping. She says Chloe is holding her hand. She says Chloe looks beautiful, even after the whole thing she's been through.

I know what she means.

I remember her last seizure, back in May. It caught and tore the breath from me, watching her after the seizing stopped. She was so pale, her body still slightly trembling, and her eyes were closed, her mouth open, tears clung to her eyelashes. Her hair was blue back then, she changes it all the time, and she looked like the mermaid that she calls herself, with her blue hair splayed on the pillow, and her arms flung to the side.

Zoe says, "Mama, she said to tell you she loves you." She says they have to go. She promises to call me back after Chloe gets back.

They are taking her for a CT scan of her brain.

And suddenly, my tears come so hard I can't stop them. I sit forward in my chair, face in my hands, and I weep, I weep, I weep for this child I love more than my own life. 

And I realize that when it's my child, it's much harder to take my own advice.

I am quick to tell others to pray through their pain. I am quick to offer Bible verses, sign them up on prayer lists, assure them that God is there and He understands and He won't leave them.

Tonight, alone in this room, with my girl so far away from me, I have to practice what I so easily preach.

Can I? Can I do it?

I don't bow my head. I lift it up. I look up at the ceiling and I close my eyes. I want to see Him.
I want to feel Him here.

In my anger, in my hurt, in my fear, I want to know that what I talk about every day, what I offer to other people, is going to help me now with my baby.

My heart still feels numb.
I do what I tell other people to do.
I say one word.
"Help."
That's all, just that one word. Anything more would be hypocritical, I think, because of the fury and pain inside of me.

"Now is the time to worship."
"Now is the time to worship."

I take a very deep, shuddering breath.

Okay, Lord, I'm thinking. I'll give it a shot. Since You keep telling me to.
But it won't be from my heart. It will be from my head. Just obedience. Not feeling.

Those are my thoughts, my plans. But His thoughts are higher than mine. His plans are different.

Bigger, powerful, earth-moving.

As I sit here, I feel it. A slow, quiet, huge calm begins to envelop me. Peace that I don't expect is warming me from my hurting heart outward.

I open my mouth. I do worship Him.
I do pray. I do worship worship worship this God, Who is my Lord, even of my anger, my fury, my fear and my pain.

No matter what happens with Chloe, Lord, I worship You.
No matter what happens with my own health, Lord, I worship You.
No matter what happens with my finances, Lord, I worship You.
No matter what. No matter how. No matter why. No matter where.
NO MATTER.
I WORSHIP YOU.

It is not easy, this road we're asked to follow. But it wasn't easy for Him either. It wasn't easy for Him to die. And we are called to be like Him.

Even when it hurts. Maybe, especially when it hurts.

I wait for a call back. But the peace is already here, somehow, and I know that whatever they say, my girl is in the safest place she can be. She's in the hands of an almighty God, the God Who breathed life into her body, the God Who loves her more than I.

When it's my child, I want to be His child even more, so I can give her to Him, and trust that He will take care of her His way.

Raw faith cuts like a knife and makes it hard to breathe.
But it is the only kind of faith I believe in.