What comfort remains

I sat on the couch with my only daughter holding her hand with my left and applying a fair amount of pressure with my right hand just below her sternum. The chemo tends to cause localized pain in short bursts for Jada who usually just calls out for someone to put pressure on the area. After the pain had subsided we just sat and talked - with each fluttering moment she would reach up and grab a fist full of hair and hand it to me. How does one respond when put in such a precarious spot? I didn't. I just took the hair, smiled, wrapped my arm around her and kissed her bare head.

Later, as Jess and I were putting her to bed, we noticed that she has begun to suck her thumb. Now, Jess and I have often said, "the only easy things with Jada have been potty training and bike riding." Which, as you might well have guessed by now, does not include the cessation of thumb sucking. Measures not normally used by parents were employed by us to get her to stop this little habit 2 years ago. It finally met its death about 10 months to a year ago...or so we thought. After Jess left the room I asked her, "Jada, I thought you hated sucking your thumb? What makes you do it now - in front of me without even hiding it?" Pausing for a moment and the and then curling her body tightly around mine on the bed, she says, "well dad, I guess its the only thing that still feels good... you know, since my cancer happened."

This may be a shot in the dark (mainly because I am blindly unaware of the consumer of this blog on a daily basis), but odds are I am not speaking to a group of folks void of the range of human emotion. So, you will understand when I tell you - there simply is not a good way to describe what I feel FOR my daughter - Jess feels the same as I do on this one. We would rather she woke up with no hair instead of this bit by bit process - one may as well chunk out pieces of your parent heart with each hunk of hair. Since mid week this past week this has been whats on the mind of Jessica and I as we discuss what will likely happen when Jada goes out into public in the coming days.

It is with no light heart at all then, that I have begun to ask this question in my daily times with Jesus: Do I really DELIGHT in the sovereignty of God? I mean truly D-E-L-I-G-H-T. Culture says that pain is bad and therefore no good can come of it; the same logic any of my children tries to wield just before I seek to apply "the rod of knowledge to the seat of understanding" if you know what I mean. I know this is not true - and I could run through a myriad of reasons as to why: both experiential and spiritual. If no good comes from pain then I have just tread lightly on the grace of God and made a mockery of the most intense, heart shattering pain ANYONE ANYWHERE has EVER experienced - the willful sacrifice of one's only begotten to benefit anyone who would have it and satisfy justice.

Do I delight in the sovereignty of God and is my faith built only when I get what I pray for OR can I delight in HIS goodness OVER and AGAINST my current comfort (or lack thereof)?

For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. ⁹Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. ¹⁰He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. ¹¹You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

Let the beginning of this week for you find its deepest rest in what is about to be read: What comfort remains for a 5 year old facing some of the darkest hours of her life and for her parents (and countless others for that matter) who are "so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself..."? Simply put - Jesus! Romans 8:32 - "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all good things?" Because God did not spare Jesus - then you and I can have "tunnel vision" as it were, and rest SECURE that GOOD WILL FOLLOW. Hard to see? Yes. Hard to believe? Yes.

But praise be to God's GLORIOUS grace He WILL HELP my unbelief, and consequently, any reader of this as well.