Unsure of my words. For a person who has spent the majority of her life being an avid talker and one who had to learn to listen (and often still offends in this way), being unsure of my words is a fairly new sensation. It started happening about 4 years ago and has only increased in frequency. Thelo just celebrated his fourth trip around the sun at the end of June. I spend his birthdays staring at him with immense and unspeakable gratitude to the One who made him. Mingled with this gratitude, inseparable; forever fused is, sorrow. Sorrow for what has already happened and sinful sorrow about what tomorrow will hold. I know that each day has its own trouble and I need not ponder tomorrow with contempt, but “future” doesn’t have the same allure it once had for me. As Thelo has gotten older, people have correctly reminded me that his life and struggles aren’t all about me. It’s about him. It’s his life, his sorrow, his struggle, his joys, his triumphs, and his faith.
This self-centered gratitude and sorrow combination are often what leaves me with my mouth shut. My mom always taught me, “If you can’t say something nice, then shut up.” (This phrase was more nicely stated when I was young, but it evolved and became more, um, “direct” as we grew up.) I often find myself with nothing nice to say, nothing eloquent to write, so in the blogging sphere, I’ve been silent for over a year.
A couple months ago, Thelo gave himself to Jesus. It was a moment in time, leaving Food Lion with all four kids in tow, that he looked up from his perch in the grocery cart, and asked me a question I can’t recall. Though, my response defaulted to the same statement and question I had asked him occasionally for the last 6 months. “Well, first you have to admit that you’ve done something wrong in order to ask God for forgiveness. Have you ever done anything wrong?” Until that moment, he had always given me a cheeky sideways grin and reply, “Nope,” with nothing but assurance. This particular moment, he looked off and calmly said, “Yes, I’ve done wrong.” Surprised, I think I chuckled. “Oh yeah?” I said, smiling. “Well, then you would have to ask God to forgive you… IF you think Jesus dying and taking your place was enough.” It’s not that I was trying to shut him down or that I want to make a child believe that salvation is too complicated for them, but they need to understand that it is an important decision they are making for themselves. And since I can’t make the decision for them, I don’t want to coax it out or placate them with feelings of misdirected accomplishment. Salvation isn’t some prize to be won so that they can have my approval. “I did,” came his simple reply. “You did? You asked God to forgive you?” “Yep,” he said confidently. “Did He forgive you?” I challenged. “Yep, He forgave me,” he emphasized. “Well, then you’re His and His Spirit lives inside you!” The conversation was finished before we had made it to the car. As I drove home, I asked the Lord to make it true. That his faith would only grow, that the Lord would take him through his life, comforting and providing for him in ways that I won’t be able to.
As Thelo’s physical heart function continued to improve, the urgency of his salvation highlighted my prayers. I know it might sound crazy to ask God to save my three year old, but God did. As his heart has continued to heal since coming back to the US from South Africa in 2015, his third open-heart surgery suddenly popped into view on the horizon. Warily looking forward to Thelo’s pre-surgical heart cath and MRI at the end of this past April, I had a tumultuous journey with the Lord. One night, blind rage folded in over me like a wave for what felt like hours of struggling with the Lord. When I came up for air, had only been 15 minutes. My hope was restored and my feet found solid ground as I begged the Lord for the salvation of staff at Duke and salvation for my son as he was preparing to embark on his own painful and complicated journey as a much more aware child with congenital heart disease. I knew Thelo was growing up and will soon begin to own his heart disease, I asked that the Lord go with him.
In the process of dealing with my own grief, I picked up two books by C. S. Lewis. One called The Problem of Pain and the other, A Grief Observed. They are both small writings, but I have taken great lengths of time to wade through the content, making it only three quarters of the way through the one about the grief he experienced during and after the loss of his wife to cancer. What I have found so refreshing about this book is that it was originally published under a pseudonym because it was simply the unrefined musings and groanings he had scribbled in a personal journal. Because of its origins, it is profoundly honest and often contradictory as a person in grief often is when going through suffering. Lewis, a man of faith, makes no great leap as he connects the relationship between physical and spiritual. This truth pushed him again to the solid ground of God’s goodness and faithfulness amid the reality of God’s loving infliction of severe spiritual and physical suffering (even when we can’t divine its purpose). When talking about the character of a God who inflicts such suffering, he explains it like this,
“The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed – might grow tired of his vile sport – might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t. Either way, we’re in for it. What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good?’ Have they never even been to a dentist?”
Lewis goes on to have inexplicable return of joy the following morning. His pain would continue as he grieved. He would not forget the sorrow of watching his wife waste away in pain and be overtaken by death, experiencing separately her own suffering and grief, but his perspective had shifted.
What I continue to be amazed and thankful for is that God’s spiritual, surgical intervention into my heart is not unique to me. He intervenes on behalf of all those who come to know Him as their Lord and Savior. This also means that His incomparable comfort comes to those who wait on Him as well. Thelo may not ask his cardiologist why he was made this way. He may not scream at his surgeon, “Why are you hurting me?!” Why would he ask them? His cardiologist didn’t fashion his heart; he only studies and monitors its delicate condition. His surgeon wouldn’t intend to torture him, but only attempt to better his life. Instead, Thelo will ask these questions to the One who can answer: God. Amazingly, the God that hears and answers is the same One who has rescued Thelo’s soul and sealed him for all eternity. No matter what.
Please keep our family in mind as we approach this surgery on August 24th*, 2017. Keep Thelo in mind as he learns what it means to trust in the Lord. His faith is so new, but that doesn’t mean it must be weak. Pray for those who will be attending to his and our family’s needs. Pray for opportunities people will have to respond to the Good News of Jesus Christ.
*This date was changed from July 27th to August 9th, and then to August 24th. The first change was made in order to accommodate the urgent surgical needs of other patients. This second change is due to a respiratory illness (a.k.a. cold) Thelo picked up last week at VBS. The pushing back of his surgical date will hopefully allow for complete resolution of his virus and put him in the best condition for surgery. Thanks for continuing to pray.
Slow to Speak 