Rainbows of Hope
On Monday Liam was sitting at the kitchen table when Adam glanced down at his leg.
“Dude, your tumor is huge.”
I looked and sucked in my gut. It’s obvious that it’s growing. CHOP was right. That three week break from chemo because insurance wouldn’t come through with the codes in time for surgery had endangered not only his leg, but his life.
How? And why? Why did God continue to speak such words of promise to me and yet we ran into block walls and what feels like the opposite of progress?
A few minutes later one of the mamas I’m talking to about this particular surgery messaged back. “Yes, I feel like I have a heart attack every single day about osteosarcoma. You really just do not know. I’ve heard of kids with tumors that grew and when they took it out and sent it to the lab it expanded as it was dying. You just can’t know.”
Liam was pretty subdued. He played more with Harrison. Skipped school because of not feeling well. Worked hard at being funny. I found out he named his tumor Frankenstein. Sounds fitting.
On Tuesday we celebrated Christmas.
Today is the crazy pre-chemo day laundry / clean up the house / pack everyone except David / school day. When I sat down to read my Bible one of the first verses I read was about Paul seeing a man crippled and lame from birth. He saw that he had faith so he simply told him to rise up and walk and the man did …. leaping and walking and praising God!
I don’t think that was coincidence. I prayed that God would increase my faith to believe! Over and over I feel as though I have faith, that I am believing, only to realize I am acting or thinking in ways that indicate the doubt in my heart. I want to believe.
This morning I realized we are six days from flying to NYC for surgery and two of those are the weekend. We still don’t have insurance approval. I peered out at the sky. I wish I could see a rainbow. But only grey sky peered back at me. I turned to shepherd Zara out of the room so I could pray to quiet my heart. “Mom, look, the rainbows.”
Confused I followed her gaze. The sun had split through the clouds and hit the prism in their window and rainbows danced all over the wall of their bedroom.
