A Day of NO! Love? Justice?

The previous couple of days have been difficult as “Terror” has raged my body. Sunday night panic hit me like a wallop making me feel as if I could lose my sanity.

Horrid

Monday afternoon I had to get Joe to the hospital for a scan of his lungs – how much have the muscles atrophied around the lungs? His breathing has become more and more labored. The loan of an oxygen tank has been helping him.

Monday morning the terror was stripping me of any energy I might have. I had been continually begging the Triune God for strength. Saying the name of Jesus over and over and over again. In the midst of my cries to Him I felt His nudge to cry out to my prayer team via FaceBook. They responded.

Parking at this part of the hospital isn’t hard just complicated – have to get Joe out, into wheelchair, pushed inside door and left there while I drive car across the street then round and round up the layered parking until there is an open space; then down an elevator, run back across the street into hospital to reclaim Joe.

God gave me the strength and energy Monday afternoon to get
Joe in and out for the test. Though I did almost lose him coming out onto the
drive which goes downwards, I had to pull back hard. God provided the strength
to do so I know He sent angels to help me.

Tuesday was to be the difficult day – a building with difficult parking and a new doctor. All for a nebulous purpose. We have been told over and over that nothing can be done for Joe’s knees, for the pain. Basically, Joe has to live with the pain. So why were we going to yet another doctor who wouldn’t have answers?

Is that loving?
Is that just?

AND for a Caretaker it means a lot more stress, feelings of
inadequacy, the continual question of “what else can I do?  The memory flashes through my mind of asking the
Primary Doctor a question and his response which made me feel stupid. I
responded, “but I’m responsible.” To which he nodded his head as though
to say, I understand.

Tuesday morning I awoke to light terror.

Almighty
God had set the stage for this day.
From my human common sense it wasn’t going to be
Good
Loving or
Just

Taking Joe anywhere is stressful because His body presents one
difficulty after another over which Joe has no control. I therefore have set
the rule that we begin to leave the apartment an hour before any appointment,
no matter how close the location.

We made good time to the building. I defied the GPS and turned into where I thought we were to go – that was a good call. Then we began the slow twisting layers of parking – NOT ONE OPEN SPOT. The majority of the parking spaces wouldn’t have worked anyway because I wouldn’t have been able to get the wheelchair between two cars and Joe was in too much pain to walk to the back of the car. We reached the roof – oh lots of parking places – but only steps to get down to the elevators.

Joe said we had plenty of time so we should wind ourselves back to the bottom and then back up again– surely there would be a space.

God has
always answered our parking prayers before.
BUT NOT THIS TIME

As I was working our way back to the top the thought
popped into my head – stop by the door, get Joe out and put him inside by the
elevators, then go park the car on the roof. A logical thought – I wasn’t at a
logical place for such a thought to be my own.

I was able to get the car over enough so other cars could pass
– I jumped out, got the wheelchair out. Joe was working his way out of the car
(very slow due to long legs and bad knee pain) when I realized I had left my
car door open (stupid) and cars couldn’t get by. I couldn’t leave Joe in the
position he was in or he would fall. I stood there looking at the door, looking
at the cars knowing the judgement of, “why doesn’t that stupid woman go close
the door so we can get by.”

Thankfully God sent a woman I had almost run over before, to
close the door – she spoke to me with such love.

I got Joe checked in, filled out all the paperwork – new doctor
– and sat there feeling the weight in my arms. They felt like they wanted to
fall off.

Terror or
just stress?
Does it really matter?

The nurse comes out and calls us. I jump out of the chair and get
Joe positioned to push him back.

Then over the next 15 minutes or more my worse dread happened (not to share here.) Just what I imagine, expect to happen every time we leave the apartment – this was the first time though. Exhausting, but God provided what I needed. The dread of this moment has always been humiliation, feeling of responsibility (surely there was something I could have done to prevent it), not knowing what I would do in that moment. But again, God was there in the moment directing me, then giving me the words to tell the nurse – though young she didn’t really know how to respond.

The doctor came in, “What do you expect from our time together
today?”

What did we expect? WOW! We had no expectations. Our Primary Doctor had suggested we go – just in case. After explaining Multiple Systems Atrophy to the orthopedist he told us that the x-rays showed a lot of arthritis and bone on bone. Then he hemmed and hawed and asked, “Why did your PD send you here?”   I responded, “I don’t think he knew either. He just thought if there was any kind of chance for anything maybe you would know.”

Then he said, “well, an associate of mine does a procedure
that deadens the nerves around the knee. I don’t know if it would work but I’ll
give you his card and you can make an appointment with him.”

Neither Joe nor I had any sense of hope or excitement over this – it means another new doctor. Another appointment. At times it feels that is all we ever do. Is it worth it? Every appointment is a challenge filled with stress.

As I drove home I prayed for good parking when we got back to
the apartment. Not only wasn’t there good parking – the mailman was parked so I
couldn’t let Joe out close to the door. I had to unload him in an awkward
place.

Another
NO
Yet GRACE in the midst of the NO

Joe was saved from getting out of the car in front of all of the people sitting in the breezeway. He was exhausted, discouraged, in a lot of pain. He didn’t need a bunch of people staring at him as he maneuvered his way out of the car. God had provided a sort of privacy. He did have to sit in the front of the building while I drove the car to the back of the apartment building and then wait for the elevator to bring me back up to the first floor to “reclaim” him.

Once inside the apartment Joe was in so much pain he could barely get out of the wheel chair. It took him a long time. I was too exhausted to help him much.

Yesterday was not a day that from my human common sense I would have cried out “O wow! What a wonderful good, loving, just Almighty God!”

Yet that
is exactly what I should do because that is who He is!

Philippians 3:8–11

[8] Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ [9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—[10] that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, [11] that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (ESV)

THAT I MAY KNOW HIM!

Take a moment and grasp the wonder of those words. That I may KNOW the King who rules the universe!

You see – the Triune God does not grant we suffer (Philippians 1) because He doesn’t care for us. He grants that we suffer BECAUSE He loves us. It is through suffering that layers of self-centeredness are peeled off so that we might get to know Him more and more.

I know that I would not know Him, have the intimate personal relationship, like I do today if He had not loved me enough to grant that I walk through years of trials – mental, emotional, relational, physical.

This morning as I wrote in my journal I wept.

Father, I weep
Not because I’m angry or sad.
Definitely, because of a deeper realization and experience of Your love
even though I don’t yet just rest in You
nor do I yet fully accept the suffering you send.
I confess
I still cling to wanting a human kind of love, a human kind of justice.

I cannot grow a deeper relationship with You
unless I surrender more and more thus willingly accept that
You have granted that I should suffer.

Do you know the Triune God so you can sing this song? Though You Slay Me
If you aren’t at that place yet study and follow the instructions of Proverbs 2 and of course the whole scripture until He grants to reveal Himself to you in such a way you will sing this song with gusto.