Wow! This is such a hard month for our family! October was the month when my life would become a whirlwind of out of control events & emotions! Last year on October 5th, exactly a month after the plane crash, my Aunt Tammy had a heart-attack. She had been battling lung cancer for quite a while. Mom told me that my Aunt had been placed on life support & I needed to come home right then. All the way home I prayed. I didn't want anyone else's answer on how to comfort my family... I wanted HIS answer. I had been reading 2 Corinthians at the time & what stuck out to me is that God is a God of all comfort! Throughout the book the Corinthians continue asking Paul for wisdom about the issues they are facing... people are immoral, people are being persecuted, good people are dying... why? Every time Paul answers, "Jesus died & rose again." On that day I walked in & spoke with my Nanny, who inevitably would soon be burying her second child. I told her that we can ask God why, but HIS answer will always be Jesus died & rose again & that answer was ENOUGH for whatever heartache we must face! That answer was all we needed to continue getting out of bed every day.
Little did I know that just a few days later I would have to take my own advice. At the luncheon before my Aunt's funeral I received a phone call that Lexi was bleeding internally & being moved to OKC's Children's Hospital. They simply couldn't get the bleeding to stop. When I walked into Contact yesterday morning that phone call weighed heavily on my mind! I remember the tears welling up in my eyes as I tried to communicate what Brian had told me. All I could say was "Lexi's been life-flighted to OKC. It's a very dangerous situation."Even speaking the words dangerous & our sweet little Lexi's name in the same sentence was heart-wrenching. October was the beginning of our tragic battle! As you know, Lexi would lose her fight with liver failure after receiving a transplant. I can't begin to describe how painful it is for all of us to revisit the dates of those terrible days!
As I have watched life both begin & fade away around me this year I have realized how blessed Christians truly are! Losing my Grammy to glioblastoma multi forme stage four brain cancer was my first faith stumble in my entire life! I was 16 years old & I couldn't grasp why God would allow good people to suffer. Three years later, I have watched as my boyfriend buried his Daddy because of the same cancer. Glio is a cancer that takes the person from you long before they are really gone. They lose their ability to walk & talk. You lose them one precious piece at a time. It is a very aggressive & short lived cancer. Both Grammy & Doug died within two months of discovering they had Glioblastoma. By the time you find out... it's already too late. His Dad, like Grammy, was an amazing Christian person! He was kind, loving, & generous. He lived every day for the Lord & was an exemplary example to everyone around him. I feel so blessed by the short time I was able to know & love Doug.
I have been amazed with both my boyfriend & his entire family during this trying time! None of them have wavered. They have held tight to their convictions! We share a commonality that few people share. It is not one that Curtis & I are glad we share in... we both would rather have Doug & Grammy back, but we are able to share this pain & understand each other in a way no one else does. I meet Curtis three months before my Grammy got sick. We worked together & he was always helping me get shifts taken care of so I could spend more time with Grammy. I do not think it was an accident that God placed us together during that time & brought us back together during Doug's battle. I do not personally know a single other person who has been through this battle besides Curtis & his family. Because of this I am so grateful that God has given us each other to share this painful experience with.
All that being said, I have been asked countless times why I continued in ministry after Lexi passed away? My answer is the same today as it was before she ever got sick... I do ministry because Jesus died & rose again... I believe in the power of HIS blood, I believe in the power of the resurrection, I believe in an empty tomb, I believe in a Lord that is coming back & I believe in a God who makes all things RIGHT! Curtis & I have both had to learn that God's answer is sometimes "no" in desperate situations. HE didn't choose to give us miracles, & we both know that HE could have, but HE has chosen to turn the "no" answers we were given on this earth into "yes" answers when we reach Heaven! So from now until HE calls us home we will hold onto the answer that is enough for all the heartache in this world... we serve a RISEN Lord! This is why Christians are blessed even in heartache. We know that this world is not our home & we have hope of a new home & a new life with the one's we love. HE is a God of all comfort & HE has never left our side. We will be made whole again because of HIS power! My prayer is that others will come to know HIM because of the battles Tammy, Grammy, Lexi, & Doug all fought & that those of us left behind are a light in the dark places in this world.
2 Corinthians 1:3-7
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort."
No comments:
Post a Comment