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Strong Enough
A year into my son’s aggressive chemo regimen, he started to look less like a college boy and more like a nursing home candidate. His hips didn’t work right. His knees didn’t work right. His feet didn’t work right. He was falling apart faster than a hundred-year-old man. After he fell three times in a week, his physical therapist suggested better shoes. Really good shoes. The kind that require an actual fitting and a store that doesn’t start with “Wal” and end with “Mart.” We drove to the closest specialty shoe store, hoping new shoes would be an easy fix for yet another debilitating side-effect of constant chemo…READ THE REST…
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The Best from the Broken
If you have children–grandchildren, godchildren, nieces or nephews, or a special child in your life–you understand how hard it is to watch them struggle and hurt. When our kids are little, we have some ability to protect them. But as they grow older, they sometimes make decisions out of our control. Decisions that come with consequences. And whether they want to take those choices back or not, it’s often too late. Other times, our kids are walking steady on the right path, but life just happens. Through no fault of their own, they get knocked off track and have to deal with the consequences that follow as well. It doesn’t…
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Suffering by Default
John 14:1 (NIV) “Do not let your hearts be troubled…” Suffering. Bring up suffering with a group of Christians and you’re almost guaranteed to push people’s theological hot buttons. The questions will go something like this: Does God cause my suffering or does He simply allow me to experience life in a sin-filled world? Does He want to use my circumstances to mold my character? Is there something I need to learn or do to escape the emotional or physical agony of being trapped in moments of trauma and crisis? Does He cause me pain on purpose or is this situation some kind of cosmic accident that I need…
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Conceding Christmas Part One: The Call
Conceding Christmas is one of my favorite past posts and tells the story I wrote about our Christmas in 2004, less than two months after Kyle was diagnosed with leukemia. Here is Part One: Conceding Christmas 3 AM I burrow deeper under the covers, the bed large and lonely. Thirteen days until Christmas, but I’m not planning a celebration. Arranging a funeral seems more likely. My husband stayed at the hospital tonight with our ten-year-old son. This time, Kyle struggles with fever, low blood counts, and multiple infections—staph in his central line and fungus in his left lung. The neighbor’s Christmas lights shine through my curtains, pulsing red and green. An ache…
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Where Is The Miracle? Part One
I follow a lot of CaringBridge sites. CaringBridge allows a family in medical crisis to post updates, prayer requests, and needs to a page that friends and family can access. The sites I follow have catchwords like “children” and “oncology.” My rooting in the pediatric cancer community comes out of the four years our family spent battling leukemia with our oldest son, Kyle. Because we’ve tread our own rough journey, people send me CaringBridge links, ask me to write encouraging emails, and pray for their friends and family that are dealing with similar struggles. I consider their requests a privilege. The way I see it, if I can’t take something…
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