The process
They arrived with masks covering their faces, chatting nonchalantly. And yet on the hospital bed lay my daughter, whose uncertainties penetrated her body. My hand lay on her leg as they gathered their equipment and unlocked her bed. My heart began to beat wildly as I saw her eyes darting around the room in a panic.
How could I let her go? And yet my hand slipped off her leg as the masked team continued out the door and down the hall. Everything within me wanted to stop them and wrap my arms around my precious 14-year-old. And yet I couldn’t. We had prayed and had willingly come so the doctors could once more drill inside my daughter’s head. Their scapula would dig deep into her brain to try to release the tumor buried within.
PC Bruce Sanders
Walking away, my heart ached, and yet what could I do? We headed to the waiting room, but I still couldn’t sit. I had too much pent-up energy. After getting a coffee, I began to walk and pray. There was nothing more I could do as we waited. Soon our time was filled with amazing people from our church who brought us goodies, talked with us, and some even walked the halls with me and prayed. The time went much quicker than I expected, and soon my phone was ringing. She was out of surgery.
Rushing up to the post-op room, we entered her cramped space. A doctor was checking her vitals as we entered the room. Moments later, our daughter was moving her hands. As I watched, in disbelief, I realized she was signing. She wanted something, but couldn’t talk after having a breathing tube stuck down her throat for four hours. My heart leapt; her brain was still working. After a few moments, we realized she was asking for water.
The following two days, we watched as our daughter went from being unable to get out of bed without the help of two people to walking around the hospital, barely holding onto us. The doctors were pleasantly surprised, and after two nights in the hospital, she was released.
Wait, you're releasing my daughter, who just had a major brain surgery, into our care? Could we provide what she needed? They had told us we would be in the hospital for at least a week, and yet here we were with our daughter propped in a wheelchair heading to our car two nights later.
Once home, the healing process seemed to take forever. Every moment my daughter was in pain, or when the pain medicine made her sick, or when she woke in the middle of the night, and she could hear liquid in her brain. The nights and days dragged by. And yet, only 10 days from surgery, our entire family went to church.
The Lord had been faithful once again. Yes, my heart still trembles at the thought of the future, and if you catch me at just the right time, I may start to bawl on your shoulder. But overall, the Lord has held us together. The scripture “I will keep in perfect peace, those who trust in me.” Isaiah 26:3 keep circulating in my mind. And I know His peace will sustain us even though we don’t know exactly what the future holds. They were only able to take a small portion of the tumor out to biopsy it to determine the next steps, and she continues to have double vision.
But we know who holds the future. We know that our God is good and we can trust Him even in the unknown. He is still the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He is never failing. Even though the results were not what we wanted, He has not failed us. As I write this, this truth soothes my soul. He has always been faithful, and we can trust Him.
Today, will you choose to trust Him with your uncertainties? Will you choose to let go of your fears and surrender your “what ifs”? Let us together surrender to the Living God and say I trust You, Lord!
