Finding Hope

I just finished reading The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb.  It is a book that had long been on my "To Read" shelf on Goodreads, and I was excited to walk past it on the shelf at the library while I was stocking up on vacation reading . . . for my daughter.  (I'm not sure how looking for books in the Young Adult section led to me being in the adult fiction section, but those sorts of things happen to me.  Any time I'm around books.)

It's a long, long book.  Possibly the longest work of fiction I've ever read.  Some of the reviews on Goodreads point to the fact that Lamb touches on five or six plot lines in this book, and he certainly covers everything from the Civil War to Columbine to PTSD to women's prisons to the current war in Afghanistan and Iraq to infidelity to . . . nearly everything else.  At first glance it really is a disjointed conglomeration that makes the reader wonder why we have held on for so long.  And then he says it.  On page 685, Lamb has a character say, "Life is messy, violent, confusing, and hopeful."

And that's it.

That's what all these things have in common.

And that's what they have in common with me reading it right now, finishing it yesterday, the day a group of people accidentally shot down a plane full of innocent passengers.  Passengers who included three infants and a hundred men and women who had dedicated their lives to saving the lives of others through HIV/AIDS research.  And the day Israel sent ground troops into Gaza.  Shortly after a local Christian radio host was arrested and charged with the sexual trafficking of a young boy.

"Life is messy, violent, confusing, and hopeful."

I have two friends whose families endured terrible and violent shooting tragedies over the past several years.  The devastation has been horrible, and it has changed everything about their worlds.  But they have hope.

I also have a friend who died following his battle against PTSD.  He fought willingly in a war against bullies and tyrants, because that's who Zack was.  But he was baptized, and he loved God, and we have hope that he is finally at peace.

For some reason Columbine has always stayed with me.  It has been tucked in my mind since it happened, and I continue to be impacted by it.  Perhaps it was the timing--I was a senior in college, so I was aware and had the time to watch the coverage and read about it.  Perhaps it was the fact that I joined my friends in taking a group of high schoolers to Columbine just one year after the shootings.  Or maybe it was standing in a church there, worshiping with my friends and those high schoolers, just miles from Columbine High School.  We sang "Better Is One Day," there in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains alongside Columbine students who knew and loved the children who died.  And we sang, with all our hearts and voices, "Better is one day in Your courts than thousands elsewhere."  Because even in that mess, that violence, that confusion . . . there was hope.

As I wrote following our break in, I have friends and family members who have lost jobs, been betrayed by friends, been abandoned by spouses who vowed to always stand by them, and have their families continually ravaged by addiction.  And all I have to offer them is this.

Life is messy.

Life is violent.

Life is confusing.

But, at the end of all this, life is hopeful.

Oh, my God.  He will not delay.
My refuge and strength, always.
I will not fear, His promise is true.
My God will come through, always.  Always.

{"Always," Kristian Stanfill}

Things We Know Nothing About

This is yesterday's blog post, take two.  Along with knowing nothing about the beautiful future and plans God has for us, sometimes we are forced to acknowledge that we know nothing about the days God has numbered for us or the countless ways He protects us every one of them.  Today is one of those days.

Addie is madly in love with horses.  She especially likes to see the "horsies in the sand" at a riding school we discovered on Michigan in between Grand River Drive and Crahen.  She asks to see them every day after we drop Ellie off at school and again after we pick her up.  Most days I comply, because I like the drive up the hill on Michigan, and, let's be honest, there's just something about horses.  Today I told her we had to hurry home from picking Ellie up so we could wrap Beau's birthday presents and the girls could make cards for him.

So there we were, on the highway.  We took the Fulton entrance onto I-96, like we normally do.  I was grumpy, because the cars in front of me were not accelerating on the entrance ramp.  They were holding us back.  We managed to get on the highway (at about 55 MPH), and I merged into traffic, quickly getting my speed up to 70 MPH. 

Just west of the East Beltline overpass, I noticed something flying through the air a few car lengths ahead of us.  It looked like a rod or something, but my brain struggled to process what I was seeing.  All I could think was there was nowhere for me to go but forward.  At 70 MPH it doesn't take long to traverse a few hundred yards, so it didn't take long before it became clear that there was going to be an impact between my van full of precious girls and this object.  I had enough time to slow down and pray that it wouldn't come through the windshield just as it seemed to land on the road in front of us.  With no other option, because I knew swerving would be the worst thing I could do at that speed, I drove over it.  The thunk it made startled the girls and was quickly erased by the ding of my check engine light.

Deciding I should head straight to the car shop--it was 4:00 on a Friday, after all--I drove to our normal car repair store where they were able to get our car right in to assess the damage.  After about an hour, we learned that the damage was close to $2,000.  I'll end up getting a new bumper, air conditioning compressor, ambient air sensor, and maybe even a new radiator!  Exciting times.  We have insurance to pay for the damage after we pay our deductible.  The money for that is in the bank, and it may even end up being only a comprehensive claim, which will save us $800.  Jehovah Jireh.  God provides.

But, as I reflect on it, none of that is the point.

The point is that there are things we know nothing about.  If I had it to do over, obviously we would go see the horsies in the sand today.  But I didn't know anything about what was on the highway, so I made the choice based on the 20 minutes it would save us to avoid that extra stop.  I also didn't know anything about the rod of metal flipping through the air on the highway.  If I had, maybe I'd have been grateful that the car in front of us didn't accelerate fast enough and held us back.  Maybe if it hadn't, we would have been a bit further down the highway where our windshield would have met a metal rod at 70 MPH.

How many times in my day, in my week, am I in the middle of things I know nothing about?  How often has God had me be just far enough to the right or just fast enough or just late enough that I missed a disaster?  When my dad was in Iraq, there was story after story about him or others he worked with being in just the right place or leaving where they were just in time or "randomly" not being where they always were at that time--those stories meant the difference between their lives and their deaths.

It's no different for any of us.  So thank you, God, for having me and my precious daughters in the palm of your hand.  Thank you for having Beau there, too.  And for having such care for all of us that nothing can happen to us without it first passing through Your hands.

What is your only comfort in life and in death?

That I am not my own, but I belong, in body and in soul, in life and in death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.  He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Heidelberg Catechism, Q & A 1

Learning from Job and Tripp

I love the book of Job.  It ends with the most beautiful images of creation.  It includes sassy responses from God.  It shows a strong man standing up to his friends.  And it provides a stunning glimpse of joy in the midst of suffering.

Late last week, the book of Job was brought to mind again as I was introduced to Tripp Roth.  A friend on Facebook posted the link to Courtney Roth's blog about being a mommy to her son, Tripp.  This is a young woman in the prime of her life--enjoying being a wife and excited about the arrival of her son.  I encourage you to check out her blog, starting with Tripp's Story.  Within hours of his birth, Courtney and her husband, Randy, were told that he suffered from Epidermolysis Bullosa.  Basically his skin was so thin that any contact with it would result in painful blisters to form.  After discussing his case with various doctors and running numerous tests--all of which caused Tripp's skin to blister and tear--it became apparent that Tripp had a fatal case of EB and would be lucky to reach his 2nd birthday.

Tripp died on January 14, at 2 years and 8 months old.  A recent visit to an expert revealed that with less care than his mother had given him, he would likely have died around his first birthday.  He should have died then.  Instead, his mother, who had never held her son skin to skin in her arms, never crushed him into her hug, never played tickle games, never smothered his face in kisses, committed her life to caring for her son.  Her marriage to Tripp's father suffered and ended.  She moved in with her parents, where her mother could help her with full time care.  She spent 2 years and 8 months wrapping her son in a blanket, coaxing him to eat, sedating him to give him baths because the pain was so intense, watching her son's eyes fuse shut.  She spent 2 years and 8 months knowing her son was in constant pain and knowing there was nothing she could do to stop it.  And she spent 2 years and 8 months thanking God for every breath her son took, every drum beat she listened to him play, every smile he offered.

Her blog and Facebook page have allowed us a glimpse into her pain and inspiration from the care that she took of a little boy medical professionals and others told her she would be justified to leave in a hospital bed where she would visit from time to time.  Or nurses could have bathed him in her home.  She could have saved her marriage--after all, she knew her son's condition was fatal.  Instead, she stayed by his side.  Why?  Because he was her son.  She was his mother.  He was her gift from God.

By the time that I discovered her blog and met Tripp, Courtney knew that his short life was ending.  She rejoiced that he would soon be pain free, that his first skin to skin contact would be with Jesus Christ, God made flesh.  God with torn flesh.  And she asked that the ending would be peaceful--for Tripp, for her, and for her family.  That's what we prayed for.

On Saturday, shortly after her only son took his final breaths wrapped snugly in a blanket in her arms, she wrote that heaven had a new drummer boy.  She wrote of her broken heart and her grief.  And then she wrote, "Please don't forget to thank God for the PEACE we prayed to him for." 

Who does that?  So few of us even remember to thank God for answered prayer in the best of times.  Yet, here was a grieving mother, reminding us to thank God for answering our prayers.  Courtney understood--and shared in her 2011 Christmas card to all of her blog followers--what Job knew.  I can only pray that I know it, too.  Especially when it matters most.

"Should we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?"  Job 2:10