Home was nice, but Christ is calling

Let me be perfectly honest with you, I had high hopes that today would be uneventful. However, we do not serve a sovereign God who likes uneventful and predictable. And, as much as it may hurt to say this, our day was about as eventful as it can be.

We jetted out of the house to the St. Jude clinic today to get Jada's central line (chemo thing on her chest) cleaned and dressed. When we got there Dr. Al (our oncologist) brought in some paperwork with a foreboding look. He admitted that what he thought was a wilm's tumor (the most common form of kidney cancer in children with 400-500 cases a year) was in fact CLEAR CELL SARCOMA (very rare cancer with only 20 cases a year)! Jess and I just held hands and cried. There really are no words at that point. Just deep, deep pain.

So, back to the hospital we go tomorrow. Jada will have a bone scan and a brain MRI to determine whether the cancer has spread to her brain or bones. The frustrating thing is that at this point one of the tests means that Jess will cannot be near Jada for 24 hours (there is a radioactive dye that she has to be injected with before the scan).

The "events" kept coming. We are confronted with: admitting to the hospital, two scans, results on Wednesday, and Thursday is the day chemotherapy will begin. I like uneventful days - because they are predictable. Eventful is nice, if your are into that "extreme faith in God" sort of thing. Which, because of Jesus, Jess and I are. I will not lie - right now is a deeply disturbing time. Questions are flying and sadness runs high. But, that does not mean we cannot rejoice in this suffering or see the Smile of God in it.

At the end of the day this is what we know, our citizenship is in heaven. And we EAGERLY await a savior from there. But in this present life we have been promised trial, difficulty and suffering. Shall we bear up under it in the NAME OF JESUS? You bet we will. Right now we are shaking our firsts at God: frustrated, hurting, and ultimately just confused. But, here is the nugget that has been just disciplining me all day... God is our strength, Jesus our advocate, and the Spirit our ever-present intercessor. This is true in theory (aka when life is "all good") and it is also true when it stinks to live it (aka when everything is difficult, even the next breath).