Trials and the Answer For Very Messy Lives

"Ronnie was no longer certain of anything. She had been wrong about so many things: her dad, Blaze, her mother, even Will. Life was so much more complicated than she had ever imagined..."

Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song

♥

Life is complicated. We like to package things neatly in black and white, but that's just not the way it is. We can craft little perfect worlds of seemingly spiritual platitudes and ideals, but when the rubber meets the road, it's never neat and tidy.

See, here's the thing: pagans cared for my children when they were in desperate need. Women who went to college. Women who put their children in *gasp* public school and then go to work. If we hold to these extra-Biblical models that women ought not have higher education and ought not have a job beyond the home, then what do we do when things are messy? Complicated? What do we do when we feel the utmost of gratitude for women who are there in the ER, in the ICU, on the pediatrics floor? Dear, Godly women like my sister-in-law who have Godly homes, loving marriages, children who follow God, and a job?

I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water. When we are given a husband and children, that's our calling. But does that look exactly the same for each one of us? Does the outworking of our faith look exactly the same as someone else's?

Some of my readers are wondering what in the world I'm talking about, unaware of some of these ideas circulating around homeschool circles and permeating choices. Others of you are firmly in that camp and have just decided to stop reading Preschoolers and Peace. That's ok. We've been marginalized for our choices in the past two years, choices that reflect how God has transformed our family. We're getting used to being black sheep ;)

I am confident that I will stand next to Baptists and Pentecostals and Fundamentalists and Methodists and Arminians and Calvinists and Mennonites and a whole slew of non-descript believers in heaven because they love Jesus more than their platitudes. Love Jesus more than your platitudes! Evangelize the world for Jesus, not a lifestyle!

Be in the business of giving people hope.

Trials That Push Us Farther Than We Knew We Could Go

This is Caroline, just minutes after she was admitted to the ER. Yes, that's a penguin on her mask :) Levity is always good in these harrowing situations, but what I didn't know at the time was that the next 21 days would prove to be the most difficult trial of my life.

Initially, Caroline's response to her circumstances was good. "I feel fine. I want to go home", she whispered through her breathing tube just hours after her first surgery. Within 24 hours, however, she would respond much differently, often lashing out at nurses and us. We eventually realized that her mood swings were directly related to the morphine boluses, and once we got her off of it, she mellowed out.

Still, when you're intimately caring for someone, putting seven other children on hold, moving heaven and earth to be in that hospital room as much as possible, it's painful and wearing to be yelled at.

Lessons were yet to be learned, refining is still happening, and I don't believe I've recovered yet.

Trials and What I Learned About Hope

Sometime during Mighty Joe's 11-day stay in the Pediatric ICU, a young lady was brought in to die. Her room was right across the hall from ours, and for three days we watched a vigil. A priest was brought in to administer last rites, a small group of pastors came in and laid hands on her, her dog was brought in to cuddle her on the bed. On the night she died, her mother stood wailing outside our room. I will never, as long as I live, forget that sound, and I remember thinking, "There's no hope. They have no hope!" It changed my life. I am not an emotional woman and often don't cry when I probably should. But every time I recall that night and the sound of that grieving mother, I weap. And then I get angry. What are we doing? If we aren't in the business of giving people hope, then we need to shut down our churches and seminaries and Christian schools and homeschools. If we love the way we view God or the way we do church or the sacraments or means of grace or modesty or homeschooling or anything else more than we love Jesus, then we ought to lay down and die right now. Just give me Jesus. Just give me hope. ♥

Trials and the Peace That Passes All Understanding

From childhood, I had been told of the peace that passes all understanding. I had a sense of that peace, but I didn't know it until I needed it. In fact, I didn't know that Mighty Joe was as sick as he was. Somehow during that first week, I hadn't heard what the doctors were saying. My husband knew, our friends knew, but I did not. It wasn't until day six that I woke up to the realization that Mighty Joe was seriously ill. Seems odd, doesn't it? This is what he looked like:

Those wires attached to his head were tracking brain activity, and every time we believed he had a seizure or other odd brain activity, we were to click a button so that it would register on a screen being monitored by a neurologist. And yet, I didn't understand the severity of the situation.

I consider myself a fairly bright person. I'm not completely daft when it comes to medical terminology. But this was God's grace, and it was that peace that passes all understanding that allowed me to be there for Mighty Joe.

Do you know when you'll experience that peace? At the exact moment you need it. Not a moment sooner, nor later.

Trials and What God Has Done For Our Family

Something changed inside me broke wide open all spilled out Till I had no doubt that something changed

Never would have believed it till I felt it in my own heart In the deepest part the healing came

And I cannot make it And I cannot fake it And I can't afford it But it's mine

Something so amazing in a heart so dark and dim When a wall falls down and the light comes in

And I cannot make it And I cannot fake it And I can't afford it But it's mine

~Sara Groves

♥

In June of 2008, I found our then-seven-week-old son nearly lifeless in his Moses basket. When we entered the ambulance to rush him to the ER, his blood sugar was 13 and he was comatose. It was a harrowing day, stretching into a night that puzzled specialists at the pediatric hospital where he had been transported. "Keep your cell phones close; he may not make it".

Within 48 hours we knew the culprit-- Joe had contracted the Enterovirus, and over the next 11 days we watched his kidneys fail, his liver fail, and his heart strain. Ultimately he emerged with two walnut sized holes in his brain. We've been told all sorts of things to watch for, including blindness, seizures, and learning disabilities.

Mighty Joe turns two today. He is not blind, we suspect one seizure but have seen no others, and he is meeting all of his milestones despite those two walnut-sized holes.

♥

I've been asked several times lately to write about all that our family has been through over the past 23 months. Mighty Joe was just the beginning, really. In December of 2008, our then-five-year-old jumped from our 12-passenger van as I was parking in our circular driveway. She thought I would stop where I normally did, and though that doesn't excuse her from getting out of her booster seat, it explains why she jumped before the car was stopped completely.

The van ran over her. Can you imagine what was going through my head when I heard my other children screaming, "Mom, you just ran over Annesley!"? When I got out of the van that day, I didn't know what I would find when I came around the car. I just remember telling myself that no matter what I saw, I needed to be prepared.

She was crying, and then she stood up and hobbled to the house. Because she wasn't bleeding, could pee, and was completely responsive, I didn't call 911. That decision and my calm demeanor in the ER prompted suspicion, and it's a horrible feeling to be perceived as a parent who did something to purposely harm their child. While Annesley merely had a fractured pelvis that healed with in a month or so, it was very, very difficult for me to recover from the suspicions of the medical professionals in that ER.

♥

In January of 2010, our family was walloped by the flu. We were all down, and two of our daughters spent several nights on makeshift beds on our bathroom floor so we could keep an eye on them. Our eight-year-old daughter, however, wasn't getting better. On Friday morning she was uncommunicative and spacey. Her skin was mottled and she could barely walk. Within an hour of arriving at the ER, she was in emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix that had sent her into septic shock.

For the second time in 18 months, I listened as a surgeon told me my child could be dead within the hour. Three weeks and three surgeries later, we were finally headed home with a sweet girl who'd lost 8 pounds and an appendix. What we gained, however, continues to shape and form our family.

Sweet Sight

Those beautiful blue eyes that can see.

Mighty Joe's StoryKendraSeptember 7, 2009 Comments

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