Life of a Pilgrim

Four Letter Words Part Two

It was the second cold of the month, and once again it went straight to her lungs. The deep rattle immediately settled down in her chest, almost before any other perceptible symptoms. This time we knew where we could be headed, but we were also several thousand miles away from Bella’s inhaler. Fortunately, both my sister and brother-in-law are physicians, and so another inhaler and child mask was quickly prescribed and we traveled back to Washington in peace knowing we could help keep Bella’s breathing where it needed to be.

But these fluid filling lungs set off a few warning bells. Colds are hitting Miss Arabella much harder than they did a year ago. And we know these could be early warning signs of a heart that’s just not performing as well as it needs to be. And so her cardiology check-up has been moved up from September to May, and we wonder if surgery is much nearer on the horizon than we have been anticipating.

And those two old antagonists – fear and pity – rise their fierce little heads again. The thought processes go something like this. What if Bella needs surgery this summer or early fall? What if I’m already at the same time dealing with a newborn needing much more constant medical care than I’ve encountered before? What if my newborn is already in and out of the hospital? What if my two babies have to have surgery within weeks, or days of each other? How on earth am I going to be present as I need and want to be for each of them? EVC can have so many implications that we have not encountered, we really don’t know just how many challenges Shiloh may face. What if her struggles are much larger and more complicated than Bella’s? And how do I love and care for my then four year old and make her still feel seen in the midst of it all? And just as I tailspin in my ability to think through, imagine or plan the road ahead, Satan likes to throw in one more nasty little curve ball, “You’re assuming there will be a newborn to take care of. That’s a mighty big assumption in your situation.”

And there I find myself, full of darts and lies and half truths and fear and pity and panic at my perceived inability to walk the road I’ve been called to.

Fortunately, there is a still small voice that is also present in these moments. A voice that invites me to look back at faithfulness instead of staring ahead into unknowns. To test, and examine, and know that there has always been grace enough for today. Not that all of my todays are easy or pain free or without trial…but that each one is filled with the presence of Jesus. Which means each day I have enough. And I am gently reminded that the what ifs are not my business and not my load to carry. And the sword of truth begins to pluck out each sinister arrow.

But lately that’s not where the Lord has been leaving me. For those truths tend to drive out the fear, but they can leave pity lingering. Silently, deadly, pity can lurk in the corners.

A week or two ago when I was in full panic tailspin at the thought of two babies going through open heart surgery so close together it suddenly hit me like a wave. We could put two children through open heart surgery. Under the care of some of the best pediatric cardiac surgeons in the world. And it would not ruin us. We won’t have to sell our house. We won’t have to take on second and third jobs. We won’t have to beg family members to contribute to the saving of our daughters’ lives. The privilege contained within those sentences is astounding. And humbling. And tends to knock the pity right out of me.

It’s easy for me to fight with and for my daughters because I have the resources available to me. For a large majority of the world, a second diagnosis of EVC, a second child with life-threatening cardiac defects, would be a death knell to the family. Many in this world could not even dream of affording life saving surgery for one child, let alone two. There are plenty of corners in the world where a parent may face the choice – keep this child knowing she will die from health complications I cannot fix or abandon this child in hopes that someone will be able to fix these complications. How does a mother make that choice?

And so lately I have found my heart broken and grieved, but more for others than for myself. My husband and I snuck away one evening this week to go see Lion, and I sobbed through a large portion of it. Grieved at the poverty that drove children to seek work at night, poverty that made finding a lost son not only improbable but impossible, grotesque evil that threatens the most vulnerable. The weighty rejoicing of the plucking out of the vulnerable from dark places – the knowing that that rejoicing comes packaged with grief and brokenness and pain.

Guess where I’m tempted to go again? Pity. Only this time for others instead of for myself. Perhaps not as dangerous, but dangerous nonetheless. Because pity tends to immobilize. Pity tends to color everything as hopeless. Pity denies that there is blessing and grace and seeds of kingdom come to be found even where my privileged clouded eyes cannot perceive it.

And so I pray, not for the grief and mourning and dissatisfaction at the injustice of it all to be wiped away, but to be used as a fire to motivate. To pray and fight for the kingdom come, yes for the one growing inside me, but elsewhere as well. What this looks like in the practical sense…that is the challenge to be teased out. And I know it will look different in each season of life.

But this I cling to, and so I have hope. There is a kingdom coming. Already and not yet seeping into the corners of this earth. And the reality of this kingdom is the best antidote against both fear and pity – for myself, and for others.