My daughter is a walking miracle. By all rights she should have been dead at least twice over. And she has the scars stretching across her abdomen to prove it.
It’s been six months since her body last tried to die, three months since the last time she was admitted to the hospital, and today she’s one of the top swimmers for her team and a straight A student.
I had a friend ask me how I was doing.
I should be fine. But I’m not.
And I won’t lie. It sucks (present and past tense). It sucks knowing your kid was so close. It sucks knowing she might not be out of the woods yet. It sucks knowing that the line between alive and dead is so very thin…especially when it’s your child. It sucks to be losing hope.
I’m better, but I’m not better…at least not yet.[tweetthis display_mode=”button_link”]I’m better, but I’m not better…at least not yet.[/tweetthis]
And therein lies the difference between today and six months (and five, four, and three months) ago when we were in the hospital AGAIN.
The difference is the acknowledgment of hope—that there is another side. That there is a time where I’ll be better enough to look back and not cry.
My “not yet” is acknowledgement of hope and anticipation of a time when the hurt will be less, the fear will be less. Even while acknowledging that we may not be done yet.
Let me be blunt. I do not need to be fixed and there are no clear-cut answers. The “answers” are too simple to be helpful and the fix only covers the festering soreness.
Just saying the words “we may not be done”, brings tears to my eyes and makes my knees buckle. I don’t know if I could do it again. But I said that after all five hospital visits. Every. Single. One. And yet I did.
It seems faith is less simple and more dangerous than I bargained for. I used to be able to close my eyes and say it won’t happen to my kids, my house, my life. I used to be able to believe we’d be safe.
But now I know safe is a lie and it might not even be what we really want. I just don’t quite know how it all works yet. But I think God’s more interested in the seeking and the questions than my pretending to know it all.
So I’m not better quite yet. And that’s okay with me.