It's been an interesting 14 months for the Bierenga family. I've alluded to some of our family's journey here and here and again here. I have wrestled over the last year with how much to write, whether to write, and what to really say. In the end, I still haven't written. I know I will, because that's what I do. But I still need a little more space to really climb into it.
At the same time, something settled in my brain on Monday that I have to share. Then it will feel real, and public, and permanent (remember, that's true about the internet).
Monday dawned dark and early, and I was in a bed at my parents' house. My parents were on their way out the door. I needed to shower so my sister and I could join them in a curtained room in the surgical prep area of Hackley Hospital in Muskegon. The morning was freezing cold, and we shivered our way to the hospital before the sun was even considering breaking the horizon. We found my parents in the last "room" on our left. Dad was lying in the bed, and Mom was sitting on a chair next to him. We spent our time there together, just the four of us, for the first time in years really, now that Sara and I are married and have five kids between us. We were together while the nurse prepped Dad, while the anesthesiologist talked with him, while Sara prayed for Dad and the surgeons and the cancer to go away, while the surgeon checked in with him, while the surgeon prayed for the surgery team, while I read a sad note from a friend whose battle with cancer is nearing its final days, while we laughed and took pictures and read comments from friends who are praying.
And then it was time for the team to walk him to the Operating Room. Nearly eight years ago, my dad left for Iraq. That goodbye was hard. That goodbye was for 400 days and thousands of miles and time zones and bombs and war. That was the hardest goodbye I've ever had with my dad. This one nestled right up against it. So much was riding on that bed. My daddy was riding on that bed. And how do you kiss him goodbye hoping and uncertain and wishing and dreaming and desperately loving? We did it.
While we were waiting in the Family Waiting Area (while "The 700 Club" played on TV, so that wasn't super helpful), we all tried to occupy ourselves. Sara worked on a training for work. Mom read Facebook and played Candy Crush and Words with Friends. I read a book for the Baker Bloggers Program. And while I was reading, while the surgeons were collecting samples of my dad's insides for biopsy, while hundreds of people around the country were praying, while we were trying to distract ourselves, it hit me.
I was reading the section entitled "Experiencing God's Presence in Suffering, Loss, and Pain." Kevin Harney wrote:
Suffering is suffering. It is ours as we walk through it. It invariably leads to tears, sorrow, heartache, and struggle. It usually comes unannounced and we rarely know when it will leave.
Most of all, suffering can crush our faith or strengthen it. The decision is ours. Will I cling to Jesus through my pain and with tears streaming down my face? Or will I turn my back and walk away from the only One who can carry me through? Will I curse God or bless his name even if my teeth are clenched in agony as I worship? Will I let the presence and power of God fill me to overflowing when I have nothing left to give, or will I seek to make it through in my own strength?
Powerful people seek to face suffering by relying on their own reserve of strength and tenacity.
The powerless throw in the towel as soon as the winds shift, long before the roof comes crashing down.
But the empowered hold the hand of Jesus and let his strength and presence carry them through the tempest of suffering, loss, and pain. The empowered know that they can't weather the storms life will bring, but that the Maker of heaven and earth can place them under his wings and shelter them no matter what comes their way.
I read that, and then I looked up at my mom and my big sister, and I said, "I'm empowered. And I'm empowered because we're empowered. That's what you and Dad taught us." And it's true.
Our faith isn't perfect. My grandparents made their mistakes, but they instilled in my mom a faith that is her own. And through their own struggles and journeys and heartaches my parents have given me a faith in the Maker of heaven and earth and His shelter and peace.
Just over 19 years ago, I left home. I moved to a secular college because I wanted to forget my parents' faith and find my own. During that time I made mistakes, and I said and did some hurtful things in my "enlightenment." But I worked hard to build my faith. And now there I was. Sitting in a nondescript and uncomfortable waiting room while my dad underwent cancer surgery, and I realized that the faith I have is now my own, but it's also my parents'. I'm empowered by the presence of God in the midst of my pain and suffering. But every single day of the journey we have walked since November 2013 I have seen the same empowering written in my parents' words. It's been in their strength, in their hope, in their peace, in their prayers. That didn't change when Zack died. It didn't change when my dad was pushed into retirement. It didn't change when our house was broken into. It didn't change when Dad was told he had cancer. It didn't change while we waited in that room together. It didn't change today when we were told that my dad's lymph nodes and all margins of his prostate are clear of cancer. And I know without a doubt that it wouldn't have changed if we had been told his body was riddled with the disease.
Harney goes on to talk about being "propelled onward by the call and mission of God." He says that our journey of faith is not really any different than Abraham's when he was still called Abram and he followed an unknown God from the land of his family into a new land where God would build His kingdom. "Who follows God like this?" Harney writes. "Abraham and Sarah. Peter and Andrew. You and me. We hear his call. He leads us on a mission day-by-day and moment-by-moment. We go, not knowing where it will lead us but trusting the God who calls us to follow him."
And we do. The journey might lead us through betrayal. It might lead us through the valley of the shadow of death. It might lead us through cancer or job loss or the breakdown of a family. But through all of that, the good and the bad, through the pain and the joy, we live with a tenacious faith that knows "God can see the end of the road even when [we] can't."
Thanks, Mom and Dad. Thanks for lending me your faith when I was a little girl. Thanks for letting me go off and try to build my own faith. And thanks for letting me find a faith that was yours all along.
