Day 358 - June 9 - Setting your face

Well, the family is nearly gone, the crowds have dispersed, and I sit here this morning as the rest of the house sleeps and look out over all the things that have to be either put away, or returned to their owners, now that the wedding celebration is past. The extended Williamson clan that came out for Joélle's wedding said their goodbyes last night, and apart from one last cousin, we are alone again. It was so great to have the families here to visit, and their departure leaves a sense of loneliness and abandonment in my heart.

Of course, that makes it prime time for the enemy of my soul to make another attack on us, and so the very first night after most everybody leaves, the night we thought to ourselves "OK, at last we can get a bit of rest after the wedding chaos" - Cherié and Connor were up every hour all night long. I awoke out of my stupor at 0615 to find that Cherié had never come to bed at all. I sent her upstairs to get a couple of hours without interruption, and I've been back in to Connor's room to deal with stuff four times already in the two hours I've been up. This is definitely not normal, and my initial response is "Great! The moment we get back to our "normal", this starts!"

It is so easy to see this problem of ours as insurmountable, and so difficult to see God as omnipotent over it. I know in my head that since the second is true, the first can't be - but it's so hard to keep that in my heart.

I was reminded this Sunday to set my face and keep going by a dear sister who told me of a man she had heard speaking at his sister's funeral. He said that he wasn't a Christian, despite his family's upbringing and his sister's strong faith, and he said that the reason he wasn't a believer was because "Christians say a lot of things but they don't live them". Wow, what an indictment. It doesn't surprise me, knowing my own proclivity to not do the things I want to do - but it was a reminder that if my reflection of Christ is to be anything close to accurate, I need to consistently be practicing the things I preach. So in this early hour, surrounded by "well, this is as bad as it gets", I have been reminding myself that God is faithful to His word, which tells me that He is the same yesterday, and today, and forever; that He wants me to ask of Him, believing that I've received it; that He wants me to believe that He has authority and power to heal my son; and that He wants me to keep faithfully believing that He will move in His time, for His glory. And then I've been asking myself what someone who believes all that would look like, and the answer isn't "moping on the sofa because his life sucks right now". Instead, it should look a lot like "Man! I can't wait for the party to get started!" Hmm, not my usual M.O.! But here goes...

The morning of Joélle's wedding, Connor called us into his room and asked us to keep something quiet. He said he didn't want to steal Joélle's excitement, and so he asked us not to say anything until after the wedding. While he had been lying in bed waiting for us to come back in and finish whatever it was we had been doing, he had moved his left big toe ten times and his right big toe four! He was very excited to be able to do that on command, and we shared it with the family over the weekend. They (of course) immediately wanted to see this progress, but since by that time he was up in his chair with his slippers on, he settled for showing them his finger and hand movements. I think the best moment was when my sister Melissa held Connor's left hand and he squeezed her fingers a bit - she immediately got this big grin on her face as her eyes filled with tears, and she just hugged him and whispered words of encouragement in his ear. It was good to see someone else feel and see these small steps.

Now, my intellectual brain can run the projections and see that at this rate of recovery, Connor will be 143 years old before full recovery takes place, so two things need to happen - first, I continue to pray that God will speed Connor's healing, because I know that his recovery isn't a product of natural happenstance, but is directed and provided by the hand of a loving and all-powerful Creator; and second, that I would find the ability to lay down my reasoning and live right here in the moment, trusting God to faithfully move in accordance with His word. So there's a couple of prayer requests for you!

I'll try to post more photos when I get an opportunity, but in the meantime "thank you" for your continued faithful support.

Eric

----------------------------------------
Print This Page