It was Heaven.
On day 5 she started screaming and to my knowledge, she hasn’t stopped. In our family, we found out quickly that sleep is so overrated. We have done absolutely everything we could: medicines, every conventional and unconventional thing possible. Nothing seemed to ease her pain. Don’t even talk to us about doctors, specialist, and the such…been there, done that.
We even burned up three vacuum cleaners just to drown her out and quiet her down (that’s a completely different story.) Most nights we would just sit on our porch in Glasgow and wait until morning.
Strange to say, but I guess the good thing about all of this is that she really has never felt good. Poor kid doesn’t know what a good day feels like. She says that there isn’t a day that she doesn’t hurt. She deals with it far better than I do.
We try to keep things in check with her, it is my obsession. We work very hard to monitor what she eats and how much. You see, we know that she has a birth defect in her colon and she doesn’t process food well. There is a “kink” and waste just won’t pass. Her body doesn’t accept nutrients like everyone else’s. This is why she is so small.
We have had a good summer. I guess I should emphasize HAD. It all fell apart a few weeks ago.
We were on the way to work in my classroom when she told me to “ STOP THE VAN.” I did, thinking she would throw up and we would go on. This is a very normal thing for us.
We stopped the car on the highway next to Concord Baptist Church. She jumped out of the car and started running through the church parking lot. For some reason, in her brain, she thinks that if she runs the pain will go away. She ran and screamed and cried and prayed. Right there in the church parking lot she cried : “ Jesus, help me! Oh! Please God, make it stop!”
It was one of the hardest moments I have ever witnessed as her mother. Watching her beg God for help. Waiting, knowing there is nothing I could do.
I called Gary and we caught her. She exhausted herself and collapsed into Daddy’s arms. We got her home, settled and decided that the worst of that day was finally over.
Wrong!
Each night I tuck my girls into their beds. We talk about the events of the day. We finish any unfinished business and end our time with prayer. I make it a priority to pray with, and pray over each of my girls every night. I want them to hear me talk to God about them, and thank God for them.
Before we prayed, Lindz stopped me . She knew what was next and she had a question.
“Why won’t God listen to me when I pray? I just want to be like everyone else.“
“ Mommy, why won’t HE help me?” “I am so tired of hurting.” “I just want one normal day.”
I fumbled around a bit. I stalled, and then I pulled from my file of “church answers.”
1. Maybe God helped you because you should have been at camp this week. This could have happened without me here. What would you have done then?
2. Maybe this episode stopped long before it should have.
3. God provided us a safe place to stay while we figured out what to do.
4. You did get better ….eventually.
To her, my theology was so completely lacking. Exhausted from my pitiful attempt, I finally looked into her hurting eyes and said,
“Lindsey, I don’t know.”
She questioned why God was being mean to her. She asked “If God made me, why did HE make me like this? “ As gently as I could, I said: “I don’t know why God created you like this, and I don’t know how to make it stop.”
Such a humbling place to come to with your child.
As her mother, I have stormed Heaven’s gates. I have begged and I have pleaded. I have sat in hospital rooms and cried until the tears were gone. I have held her through every possible procedure. We have tried every cocktail of medicine you could fathom. I have learned all too early what it feels like to be a mom when “a hug can’t heal the hurt.” I have visited all too often the place of utter helplessness with my little girl in my arms.
9 years……
That night I lay in bed thinking about our conversation. I realized something. In her little 9 year old way she articulated words that few people are brave enough to say… at least out loud.
Why won’t God help me when I need HIM so badly? Where is God when my world is crashing? Is this really part of a plan, or just a mean joke for some heavenly entertainment?
How can a loving God allow such bad things to take place? Why doesn’t HE intervene in situations that could only bring HIM glory?
Lindsey’s issue is small compared to others Divorce, death, calamity, etc. But the sentiment and questions prevail.
Where is God in all this? Where is the healing? Where is my promise? Why is there a “thorn” God won’t remove?
I have played around with the thought for days. I have tried to come up with a reasonable answer to satisfy her questioning heart. Even the Sunday night sermon at church last week was about unanswered prayers. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
I thought about blogging on it. I have typed this several times. I finally let it go, but God just won’t let me….. let it go.
Today’s lesson at church this morning was even on….. prayer. I am guessing if HE is dealing with me and my child about this then there are others who may need some answers too.
While I may not be any closer to a concrete answer for my child to grasp, I have realized something this week.
I have failed my daughter.
I have painted her a picture of God that is not real. A portrait of wish granter. We talk all the time about answered prayers and prayer requests that God honors. We speak of a loving God who is more like Santa than Savior. A heavenly check off list of things we desire. It is so easy to proclaim our love for God when HE does what we want.
But how often do you hear someone talk about what happens when God says… NO. When HE hears from Heaven and answers…“ I can fix it, but I choose not to…. and I am not going to tell you why.” Or When you get no answer at all…
I don’t think that I have ever heard anyone out loud thank God for the silence of an unanswered petition. It is one thing to look back and see how it could have been different. It is quite another to live in the presence of the answer being withheld.
I know for certain that I have never shared my feelings. I have never talked with Lindsey about my unanswered pleas… times when I have been disappointed with God.
I have heard that God is like a parent. As a parent, there are things that my children ask for and I grant. There are things I deny. Then there are things that simple get, “Cause, I am the mom” response. No explanation except my position of authority. There is a reason; I am just not going to explain it. It is usually about details they don’t need. Sometimes the silence is out of necessity and sometimes it is just my preference. Anyway, it is my prerogative to share or withhold. It doesn’t change my position of parent though. My answer doesn’t change the relationship. I don’t quit being a good mom because I don’t do what they want, when they want it. That, by definition, would BE bad parenting. To let a child with partial knowledge dictate my reactions.
I heard a story once about how people disguised irreplaceable paintings by painting another image on top of it. While the displayed image was pleasing, there was another layer much more beautiful. The true artifact designed by the creator was present, but to uncover the mystery, someone must expose it.
I think God is calling me to do that with Lindsey. To reveal to her another layer of the painting. Sharing with her the truth that God works in ways that can’t be explained, or sometimes even justified in our human heart.
I think for Lindsey it is time to “peel the paint” off of her portrait. To show her that the God she wants may not the God she needs. It is time for her childlike view to take a new shape;
The true beauty of the masterpiece… a God who can’t be explained.
I welcome her questions for they are heartfelt and genuine and they are drawing her to a deeper truth,
…an introduction to a Savior that in HIS infinite wisdom gets to dictate the WHY?
I think it is time to explain to her that God is not “being mean.” She is not being ignored. She hasn’t done something wrong to cause her pain. And while she desperately wants them, she may never get the answers she seeks.
I have revisited this over and over in my mind this week and I have come to a conclusion. Funny, it is the same one I arrived at that night in her room. It is not terribly profound, actually it really is simple:
Honestly, I still don’t know why…
But, I do know WHO….
and knowing that is enough.
Jeremiah 29:11
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