Thursday, January 19, 2012

Why? And How?

I'm at home today with a sick five year old. Right now she is asleep in my bed, fully dressed, under a down comforter and her last words before drifting off were "I'm cold." Its hard to understand sickness and illness and disease. She was fine one minute and had fever the next. She has been sick so much this past year and we keep asking the unanswerable question - why?

We still don't have an answer and neither do so many other people who wonder that very same thing regarding issues in their own lives. Right now I have a dear friend wondering that very same thing as her own medical journey begins. From what I've learned over the past year, medical journeys aren't about medicine as much as they are faith. I also know that we aren't promised an answer to why. We aren't even promised an easy walk, but most of us do have it easy until a rock in our path sends us stumbling. Then we tend to fall to our knees, ask why, ask for help, and then, depending on our faith, either get up and recognize that help was already there, or stay down in the dirt dwelling on the why.

I also know that those rocks serve as perspective changers. The view is much different on two feet as opposed to ones knees. I think it is imperative that we all experience time on our knees. Not just "on our knees in prayer" but on our knees as in completely out of control of a situation so that me must fully rely on God's plan and His provisions for our lives. It is painful to stay on the knees for too long. It hurts. But it also makes you stronger, more dependent on Him. Isn't that an oxymoron! We grow stronger as we become more dependent. That is the complete opposite of what the world teaches us. The world says dependence is weakness. I know that is not true. I've been the strongest when my backbone turned to mush and Christ was standing for me. Ask any mother who has had a sick child. Ask anyone who has watched a loved one suffer. Ask anyone who is waiting for results. It's not our own strength but the strength of the Lord in us. That doesn't answer the why, but it does answer the how.

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