This past weekend my brother came into town and visited us. It has been a grueling month or so. I have spent most of my lunches and weekends submitting paperwork and trying to get as much information as possible to figure out what to do next for Alex. To find every expert surgeon, doctor, and resource available to make Alex’s life a little easier. To research and explore every option, every possible next step, so I am prepared for the next hurricane that enters our life this season.
My brother came into town to help out – he’s offered to come many times in the past and said to please call him whenever I needed it. So I did. After an exhausting few weeks, I could barely put one foot in front of the other. And he came into town, no questions asked. Whatever plans he may have had, he didn’t tell me. He just came.
We were able to make it to church. This doesn’t happen as easily as it used to – between the millions of things we do on the weekends to prepare for our work weeks, including Alex’s therapies, doctor appointments, regularly neurology appointments, and working with hospitals on second opinions, the majority of my free time (when I have it) is spent sleeping so that I can somewhat function on a daily basis.
But we made it to church. In my heart, I have been wanting to go for so long, and just could never figure out how to get there with everything else going on. Having the extra support this weekend was wonderful and allowed us to be able to go while Cleon stayed home with the baby.
This week, the pastor told the story of Jonah. How Jonah was swallowed up at sea and spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. He repents and prays during that time and after 3 days Jonah is rescued from the belly of the fish.
The pastor then reminded us that we all need rescuing. We all need to be saved and God loves us. When we are in those deepest, darkest times, where we feel like we’re in the belly of the fish…when we’re swimming around in filth and slime, where we’ve hit rock bottom whether it’s by our own doing or by life’s circumstances…sometimes we all need a second chance. A chance to make things right, to be given light at the end of the tunnel, and to be saved.
There isn’t another time in my life where things have felt so hopeless, so dark, so incredibly humbling. Where all I have wanted was that glimmer of hope, for someone to rescue me, and Alex, and make things right. I have tried so hard to make Alex better. I have prayed for God to perform a miracle. To wake up one day and just have everything be calm and easy. I have gotten down on my knees by his crib and cried for God to help me keep going, when I feel like sometimes I just can’t.
But then I realize that it’s not always the big miracles…it’s the little ones that matter too. It’s my brother coming into town and making dinner, helping with house projects, and waking up in the middle of the night with the baby so I can get some more sleep. It’s my friends rallying support and keeping meals delivered during the week because I am so tired from working and fighting for my son that I barely have the energy to cook when I get home. It’s my sister-in-law stopping on the side of the road for the man whose car wasn’t starting, and offering to give him a jump. It’s seeing family members offer up their home and lives to fostering children who need someone to love them and care for them. It’s the small notes I get from people in the mail, encouraging me to keep going. It’s doctors going into medicine and becoming skilled in a craft so that they can perform these miracles for children across the country and the world who need to be saved. These things don’t go unnoticed…when was the last time you saw those small miracles?
One thing the pastor said was for us to “do a caring project.” It doesn’t have to be a mission trip across the Atlantic Ocean…it can just be across the street. It can be the family in the Walmart parking lot who needs groceries and even though you question whether they might buy something else with that money, trusting that they will use it to feed their family. Pay for the coffee for the person behind you in line. If you can’t give money, give your time to someone, or something, that really needs it. Donate your clothes that you no longer wear to the Salvation Army. Offer an ear to a friend who is down and may just need a little support and a hug. Go pick up your friend’s laundry if you went over last week and you saw it piling up, and bring it back the next day, even if they haven’t asked you to.
I have seen so many “caring projects” in the last 6 months of my life. People who have loved Alex like he’s theirs and have stepped in to keep Cleon and me going so that we can be there for our son. It is my hope that one day soon, we will be on the other side of this, and we can perform our own caring projects for others and pay all of the goodness we’ve experienced forward.
I saw this quote on a blog from another Mom who has suffered through a similar diagnosis of their child.
“There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is suffering too terrible to name…
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable.
These moments when you’re in so deep
It feels easier to just swim down.”
To those in the dark:
I feel your pain. I’ve wanted to swim down…way down…down in the belly of the fish. Sometimes you might think it is easier to wallow there and be in the dark by yourself. To swim around in the messy chaos and feel sorry for yourself, and be bitter towards others. We have seen this play out in our society, even recently. But do me a favor, don’t stay there too long. There is ALWAYS light if you let it in. I promise you, the dark is not a fun place to be by yourself, or even with others. You weren’t meant to stay in the valley, you were meant to walk through it, with God by your side. This is His will, His plan, His timing…not ours.
To those not in the dark:
…Do one thing today to help rescue the people you love. I’d love to show that there can be goodness from pain. There can be hope in times of despair. That there can be light in the darkness.
If you do a caring project, or a random act of kindness, or you see something beautiful…will you rally together for Alex using the hashtag #light4Alex. It will help keep me going, to see how God can light our way through this, and to remind me to not focus on the dark.
I’d love to see the good and beautiful things that come from this little boy inspiring us all.