"Some thoughts I wanted to share" - Jason

Over the last few days I have experienced a few moments of clarity, mostly due to timely advice and encouragement from my friends and family. I wanted to share these new (or newly regained) insights with all those praying for and thinking about Kelly. There's hundreds of years of theology that probably can better elucidate all of this, but here's what has dawned on me.


On Tuesday morning I came to work but literally felt crushed underneath an insurmountable weight. In this day and age, information is abundant and my instinct was to gather as much of it as possible after hearing from doctors on Monday night. The information available to us concerning this malady is not good. I was immediately overwhelmed with hopelessness, untethered and adrift, lost completely. I received constant encouragement from friends and family but having become recently "informed," I saw all of that for what it was worth. I became a blubbering mess and knew I had to do something to get it together for Kelly's sake and for that of my kids. Then I spoke with one of the dearest friends that night. He is himself a physician and no stranger to the "facts" about this disease. He reminded me that Kelly isn't a "fact," or a "patient" or a "subject of study." She is Kelly, a unique child of God. And that it will be devastating to race to the "logical" conclusion of this. And that it must unfold before us one little step at a time. And that my role in this is to walk with her, at her side for each of those steps.


The next morning I returned to an email I received from the day before. In it was a bible verse, from Lamentations 3:19-23. As I read it again, I focused on the last verse:


23 Great is his faithfulness;
          his mercies begin afresh each morning.


There it is - that strange connecting of the dots that seems to happen when two people who barely know each other manage to speak to me in different ways at different times but point me to the same subtle truth. Kelly and I have taken great comfort in this truth since that moment - as we grow overwhelmed with the "reasonable" outcome of all of this, we have to get back to the journey, and not anticipate the journey's end. We will take each day as it comes, with its unique challenges, and follow the footsteps in front of us. Following Christ means a lot of things, but for us right now it literally means stop, find the trail again, and follow where he walks just ahead of you.


The second awakening for me in the last few days occurred yesterday, as I waited anxiously during Kelly's surgery. The blog and the constant buzzing of my phone as texts, voicemails, and emails continued to flood in from everybody everywhere - phone numbers I didn't recognize at first, people I hadn't heard from in years, people I had forgotten to reach out to but in some amazing way had learned anyway. It pointed me back to the night before - when I had difficulty parking at my own house at 9:30 PM because my neighborhood just isn't suited for parking for the 50 people that showed up to pray over my wife and my family. Again, there is better and more eloquent theology, but it occurred to me that we sometimes pray for the presence and power of God to manifest itself. I think this is because of our imperfect understanding and our habit of ritualizing our communion with God.We thing of prayer and God in a mystical way - like we can summon him with our incantations and convince him of aiding us towards an outcome we desire. The power and presence of God were not brought forth by our prayers, but our gathering together was the power and presence of God. He didn't show up because you got there first and called on him, he brought you there. The prayers prayed over us are God's voice speaking to us; your hand in ours, his hand in ours, your tears shed, his tears washing over us; your embrace, his loving arms enveloping us. That's what God called all of you to do, and you did it. And lives were touched by it in ways none of us are able to understand. Ways that have nothing to do with illness. In particular, one of my own children was moved by it in a profound way. God makes people desire to follow him, because he moves his children to lift one another up, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, and believers and non-believers alike bear witness.


Thank you all and may God bless you!


Jason