Oh how I pray that you hear my heart in this.
For this long season I have been in my prayer is that no matter what pain or suffering I endure that Christ would be glorified through my situation and that the masses would come to know HIS great name and oh how I pray that you are drawn closer to him, have questions for him and come to a deeper understanding of how great, how big and how wide is unfailing love is for us.
With all that being said, last night after a large lump had been in my throat all day, the gates of heaven opened up and the sorrow of tears streamed down my face. I wept and I wept hard. My soul was shaken, broken and ultimately shattered and the deep deep disappointed that I was faced with, that I had bottled up deep within came to a head and exploded. Oh my word was it a long, good, powerful release. One that I needed to purge out and one that ultimately left me flat out vulnerable before his throne.
You see, I had prayed and prayed for God to send me to a team of doctors that would start from scratch, do the entire gamete of testing, see something the others had been missing and lead me onto a path of recovery. I was so hopeful and optimistic about this and when the doors so quickly opened up at MD Anderson, I just knew that God was about to bring me healing. So, after planning this trip, finding people to watch my children and many prayerful and anxious days we went to MD Anderson. When we walked in oh how my heart bleed for the people I had encountered. These individuals were so sick, they were at their last hope in finding healing and were truly fighting for their lives. I was in prayer for all that my eyes encountered and I truly felt deep empathy for them.
So we got there, I did my intake, my vitals and blood draw and then the doctor called me in and this is where my hopefulness turned into hopelessness. The doctor came in introduced himself, sat in his chair and began flipping through the notes my other doctors had sent him. He agreed I did not need a bone marrow drawn because it was already noted I had systemic mastocytosis. He began explaining how the type I had was not the aggressive type, PRAISE THE LORD, and that there was not a cure but they are currently working on medications to help improve the quality of ones life. He not once examined me, tested me, nothing. He sat there in his chair, reading these papers and that was it. When the realization of “this was going to be my life” kicked in tears began to roll down my face. He then stated, you are the best case I will see today. Everyone else here is buying time, fighting for their lives. Oh how I so knew the truth in that but I was crushed. My illness, my quality of life, all the pain and agony I walk through almost daily was being dismissed and diminished. My hope was fading quickly and then he ended with this. We will contact you when we have a drug for you to try, said his goodbyes and that was that.
Don’t get me wrong, I am praising HIM so greatly that the strain of the disease I have is not life threatening and I praise HIM although my quality of life is altered, I am still breathing and have a full life to live. But… What I had hoped for, what I had prayed for, what I went there seeking, was in my eyes for nothing. He could have reviewed my file and called me with the news of, I can’t do anything for you. To travel, spend money, leave my kids, all that was for him to sit back in his chair read papers to me that I had already known and in my eyes and in my flesh bring me to a deeper place of darkness.
So where do I go from here? I honesty do not know. But last night the painful tears I cried left me in a place on bended knee before him. I place where I literally cried out, screamed out, GOD why am I going through all of this? Is this all worth it? Show me hope, show me light, show me there is purpose of all of this. And then I was reminded that with my early and unexpected release from MD Anderson, we went to the shuttle pickup and there sitting next to me was a beautiful young girl who was fighting for her life. God so placed it on my heart to go pray for her but at first I was questioning him and hesitant. She kept looking at me with such deep sadness, with hopelessness and her eyes were in deep, lifeless pain. God continued to press on my heart to pray and so I obeyed. I stood up, looked at John and Pam said I need to go pray for that little girl and so we went over to her and asked her if we could pray for her. I asked her name and her mothers name and we all gathered together, layed hands on them and began praying for Kailey and her mother Mandy. We prayed for healing, we prayed for hope and we prayed for him to bless them with comfort and peace. You see Kailey is a 15 year old girl that was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer and is sooo grieving the loss that she will never be able to bare a child. She is truly fighting for her life. She is fragile, scared and was so hopeless. I continued to tell her not to give up hope, and just loved on her the best way possible. God again placed it on my heart to give her money and exact amount. As she was about to go onto her shuttle, and after an exchange of information so I could continue to pray for them and be in contact, I handed her the money, her face lit up and I said go buy yourself something special today. She left with a glimpse of hope and I left with a heavy heart for a little girl, who at 15 is facing painful, terrified, hopeless days. Oh how I pray God pours out his anointed healing upon her, resurrects and redeems her life and oh how I pray this little girl named Kailey comes to know the depth of his unfailing love for her.
So, I came to a place of peace last night that going to MD Anderson was not for nothing. For if the only reason I went and was released earlier than I had wanted was for that one encounter with Kailey, well then, it was so worth it. I do not know what tomorrow brings and I do not know why things happen and in the fashion they do but what I do know is that God knows all things. He is in control of ALL things and he weeps, he grieves, he knows the intimate cry of our soul, the painful tears we cry and he knows just where to meet us to speak the depth of his love into our souls. Whether sending us an angel to speak his love into us, sending us in our own despair to speak into another who is lifeless and hopeless or just leaving us face down before him, crying out for more of him, HE will never fail us and HE will always meet us.
I pray you read this and see the deepest cry of my heart and hear the depth of how my disappointment lead to someones else’s hope. I do not know where you are. If you are feeling hopeless, if you have stepped away from him or you don’t even know him I am pleading with you to come to a place on bended knee where you invite him into your heart. I honesty DO NOT know how I could survive or get through the darkest of days without him leading, guiding, and loving on me every step of the way. I do not know all the answers in life but I do know HE is the answer to my life and oh how I pray he will become yours as well.