Who Daily Bears Us Up
This week has been a beast.
On Sunday Liam threw up again. Delayed nausea from Cisplatin is so mean. You think you’re finished with chemo, but the nausea keeps sneaking back and biting you just when you think you’ve finally recovered.
Two of my dearest friends came to see me that morning. We sat on the porch to avoid any possibility of germ transfer. Liam wasn’t able to get insurance approval for neulasta and his chemo knocked his white counts so low. It was an incredible gift to sit and talk with them for a few hours. They listened and listened and listened allowing me space to be exactly where I was emotionally.
It’s hard to describe how much it means when people show up with presence. Sometimes that presence is physical. Sometimes it means texting every few days or every week in ways that don’t demand response but invite it if it’s wanted. Sometimes it means tangible gifts shipped or delivered. When you’re going through this kind of hurricane, you don’t always have time or brain cells to respond, but if no one lets you know they are thinking of you, you quickly begin to feel all alone and forgotten. Crisis is almost unbearably isolating. You feel so alone because no one else really understands what it’s like to be where you are and you rarely have time to explain it. And with aggressive cancers, it quickly becomes that way physically because you are either in treatment or recovering. We will forever be so grateful to God for the people who showed up for us, literally holding up our arms and giving us strength to keep going.
On Monday I took Zara for a dental consult. On Thursday Liam had to be back in clinic for a visit and to see PT for the hip pain he’d developed from being on crutches. I raced home and met my mom partway home to trade Liam for Zara and raced back in to town for her physical for preop. Mom barely got home in time to drop off Liam and take Adam to drivers ed.
Basically, life makes your head spin.
But on Wednesday, Courtney came. It was SO GOOD to see someone who had survived osteosarcoma and survived it well! The kids all fell in love with her so much they begged her to come back! Liam was taken aback at the size of her scar, but I was so thankful for him to get a picture of what things would look like for him.
When she prayed for him and anointed him, I knew she was part of our warfare. She prayed with an authority I am only beginning to learn about. Prayer feels like something I will spend a lifetime learning. How to pray with faith. How our belief (or lack of it) in God and our perception of Him influences our prayers. The way we are sometimes prompted to pray a certain thing by the Spirit. Last summer when I struggled so hard with Harrison’s neck issues, dietary challenges, and developmental delays, I felt we should be anointed. We experienced some healing, but far from complete healing. I struggled a lot as I processed that time, but over and over I heard God saying, “You are stronger than you think you are. You can do this.” I felt as though I was to pray for strength to endure and accept. Now, with Liam, I felt as though to be in obedience to the voice of God, I was to pray for complete and miraculous healing and I was supposed to fully believe that it would come to pass.
I don’t at all profess to understand the nuances of prayer or what it looks like for others. I only know that I am called to walk in obedience and keep learning.
Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up;
God is our salvation.
Our God is a God of salvation,
and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death. Psalm 68:19-20