Nicole K. Twedt

Being Brave When Life Is Hard

Steven’s Story

by //

It’s the afternoon of June 13, my thirty-first birthday.  I’m not a fan of tank tops but I’m wearing one.  It’s white, ribbed and has lace across the bodice. The weather outside is intense for the Pacific Northwest, intense by anyone’s standards I think.

Our family of four (two adults, one surly toddler and infant son), seek sanctuary from the soaring heat in a crowded but air conditioned optical shop in Woodinville, a small town east of us.

K. slips the lime frames on my not quite six-month-old’s round face.  He looks at me and smiles.

“He’s seeing your face for the first time,” K. gently tells me.

I hadn’t realized his vision was that bad.

Steven sees my face for the first time while K adjusts the frames.

***

Steven is our sensitive yet larger-than-life middle child. He’s now eight-and-a-half, going into third grade in a few weeks time.  We guessed something was up with his eyes after my mom uploaded a photo of baby Steven from her tiny camera screen to her computer.  On the large monitor, it was easy to see that Steven’s eyes weren’t quite right.   One eye, the right eye, drifted quite a bit.

I don’t have time (or the attention span) to go into it all.  In a nutshell: Steven is a kid with extreme vision impairment.  Without corrective lenses, he’s significantly farsighted, lacks depth perception, peripheral vision and other vision essentials.  I’m not going to get into the Morning Glory junk.  Morning Glory Syndrome is the birth defect Steven has in his right optic nerve.  It’s complicated and Steven has a rare form of it.  I won’t explain MGS but I’ll talk about it a bit later on.  You can google it if you’d like.  Or read about it here.

I’m going to be proactive and save myself time (and sanity) by copying and pasting old Christmas letters to tell the tale of Steven’s vision, much like I did a few weeks ago when I shared the hope and heartbreak of  Lauren’s hearing loss journey.  How you rallied around us and prayed for our girl.  Thank you.

I never let you know how her appointment turned out.  Basically, hearing is as it was at the last check.  Stable, but not quite right in the left.  Not bad enough to qualify as hearing loss.  But not what it once was in that ear.  Friends, please continue to pray.

But this is Steven’s story.  Back to him.

The only Christmas letter I’m missing is the one from just before Steven’s first birthday.  My old computer crashed, you see. I have a hard copy somewhere.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t showed itself yet.  The tidiness factor of our house is so-so.  I pretty much run out of steam before I get to my bedroom.  2009’s Christmas letter is in there somewhere, I’m sure of it.

I do know we met Dr. P, Steven’s pediatric optometrist, in June of 2009.  Steven was diagnosed with albinism.  We were told that Steven was albino and had “blonde eyes.”  I don’t even remember what that means because the albinism diagnosis didn’t stick.  I don’t think albino is the politically correct term anyway.  I don’t know what is.

Nevertheless, our little guy was fitted for glasses and we met K. for the first time at the little optical shop in Woodinville. For many years K. was Steven’s beloved optician.   I wrote already that Steven was fitted for glasses.  I’ll mention it again because this was one of the best gifts I’ve ever received: my baby seeing my face clearly for the very first time, on my birthday to boot.

As stated, Morning Glory Syndrome was the next diagnosis.  I’m not entirely convinced Steven has Morning Glory.  We’ve had three opinions, and they disagree.  Anyway, in 2009 we met the head of ophthalmology at Seattle Children’s Hospital.  Around the same time patching began, and so did contacts, maybe around thanksgiving.  Don’t get me started on infants and contacts!

Most of my pictures of Steven during this time are of him without glasses. It was next to impossible to keep his glasses on. That, or he was in contacts.

I seriously wanted to move to the eastside to be closer to Dr. P’s office.  We were in her office multiple times a week.  You see, just about every time he cried, Steven lost a contact.  As his sensitive spirit emerged I didn’t really let Steven cry it out.  It was the worse thing I could have done for him.  But even if he wasn’t crying much, babies cry.  And when he lost a contact we had to see Dr. P, as it was more than a two-person job, at least for us.

Now the copying and pasting begins.  I’m not above plagiarizing myself and those Christmas letters from Steven’s early childhood.

2010

Steven blowing bubbles with Grandpa Dave at the Lake Roesiger house.

What if Steven is healed?  What if his vision is fully restored and eye muscles stabilize?  What if?  These are the dreams dearest to our hearts, what we’re hoping for, praying for and waiting for.  My heart hurts thinking of the last year and a half and all we’ve been through with Steven.  In January we received a 3rd opinion, which we were certain would be positive, only to find that Steven really does have Morning Glory Syndrome.  Less than 1 in 5 million folks in the US have MGS, and our little guy has a rare form of it.  Nice.  Then around the beginning of the year, a spot on Steven’s optic nerve was discovered.  Now the word cancer was never spoken aloud, but after loosing my dad to cancer that’s exactly where my mind went.  Turns out everything is fine, and we’re praising God for it, but under doctor’s orders we had to put our boy under anesthesia for a MRI to make sure nothing was wrong with his brain, which happens with MGS.

The latest is that Steven’s right optic nerve is normalizing.  We were told this happens with MGS but it always goes back.  It’s not gone back.

Do I dare say miracle?

I’m trusting that God fearfully and wonderfully made Steven’s eyes.  He’s a loving Father who has amazing plans for them, plans to display his glory, splendor and majesty, along with his goodness, compassion and love.

Back to my question:  What if Steven is healed?  Well then, God will certainly be glorified because it wouldn’t be for Steven’s effort!  Our lively one fully mastered the ability to remove contacts, constantly warps the frames of his glasses beyond recognition, and damages lenses from chewing on them.  Though I must say, Steven’s specialty happens to be ripping off patches with a vengeance  It’s all supposed to get easier as he gets older.  Frankly at just shy of two, Steven is stronger and more determined not to cooperate than he was a year ago.  Let’s just say we are hoping for the day when we only have to take Steven in for annual eye exams, like Emily.

2011

At two-and-a-half, big brother Steven is a pro at wearing glasses. He finally gets that he can see better with them.

Steven’s eyes are constantly changing.  The right eye, the one touched by Morning Glory Syndrome, is getting better and better with each visit.  And the left is starting to catch up.  There’s been only the slightest change in that eye, but it’s enough improvement to need a new lens.   All praise and glory to Steven’s Healer!  We’re thankful for all of Dr. P.’s help, too.  We press on, not knowing what’s ahead, claiming victory and hope for the day when Steven’s eyes are perfect in structure, strength and vision.

2012 was less about vision, more about Steven’s puppy dog antics.

We have another little one in school this year.  We were blessed to find a preschool for Steven that is literally 5 minutes from our home.  We are so thankful to God,  and Tonya, the mom-friend from ballet who told me about the new preschool.  I love how God puts people in our life at just the right moment.  I also love that our son’s teacher totally gets him.  After all, she is the mother of 8-year-old twin boys.

The bad news is Steven still turns into a dog.  He even has names for his alter egos: Buster, Chocolate Chip Mint and Woof-Woof.

“Where’s Woof-Woof going today?” Steven constantly asks.

“I don’t know about Woof-Woof, but Steven is going to preschool,” is my firm response.

Goodness child, this is getting old!  However, just last week I was encouraged by some of my girlfriends to embrace Steven’s inner doggy and now we are using it to our advantage.

Heard around our home: “Be a good little doggy and pick up all of the dog bones (toys) in your dog house (room).”

Never in a million years did we think we’d parent like this.  But really, how else do we train a kid who thinks he’s a dog? Obedience school?  Clearly we need something.  Just yesterday I caught our naughty little puppy dog under his beloved train table, naked, sneaking the last of daddy’s Christmas sugar cookies.

2013

Glasses with patching at Remlinger Farms.

“Miracles are happening.”  To hear Dr. P. say in October that Steven’s optic nerve is “more normal than ever,” and that we are “witnessing a miracle,” is beyond exciting.  He still needs plenty of prayer and much is unknown regarding his eye structure and vision.  Yet we’re thankful for the good work continuing in our sweet boy’s eyes.   We keep on praying and trusting Jesus until the day Steven’s healing is complete.”

2014

Again, not really about Steven’s vision.  This update has everything to do with Steven’s #1 love: dogs.

Today is October 31 and I am writing our family’s Christmas letter.  This is a new record even for me.  Greg would tease me mercilessly if he knew I was at the computer writing about Christmas on Halloween.  But in a little over 24 hours life as we know it will forever change.  Tomorrow we are getting a puppy.

Let me back up a bit.  There has been a striking similarity in the last three years between Steven and Skippyjon Jones from the children’s book of the same name by Judy Schachner about a Siamese cat-boy who imagines himself part of the Chihuahua world.  But instead of a cat we had a five-and-a-half-year-old man-child whose antics parallel all things canine.  All the growling, all the barking, all the time.  Until last spring…

(Last spring)

Mom: “Steven, you must stop acting like a dog.  Seriously, Buddy, if you ever want a dog you’ve got to stop being a dog.”

Steven: (Silence, golden silence.)

And just like that his dog days were over.  Which brings me back to tomorrow.  In the name of positive reinforcement, we will drive an hour-and-a-half north to Ferndale to bring our Havanese puppy home.  Her name is Chloe.  She’s teeny tiny, hypoallergenic, and just about the sweetest non-human creature we have ever met.

2015

As for the first-grader, it turns out that Steven-in-the-middle is an awesome soccer player.  We’re not sure if it’s good or bad, but our boy was christened with the nickname The Beast by his assistant coach.

The Beast has a gift.  The Beast didn’t get his soccer moves from his parents.

It’s trilling, watching Steven play.  I cried a bit during soccer season, at how little his vision impairment affects his life (like not at all).  I never thought I’d thank God for sports, but I did. Every single game.

We’re still praying for healing for his eyes but until then, God has shown over and over that he goes before and after Steven in all his crazy kid endeavors.

2016

It’s been a year of setbacks and a year of great rejoicing.  I hardly know where to start.  Steven lost vision over the summer, you see.  It was truly alarming.  Our little boy had to do an extremely hard thing for a little boy to do.  He wore an eyepatch six hours a day over his strong eye, mostly during elementary school hours.  It was a small setback, compared to how far he’s come, vision-wise.  And his suffering pales in comparison to the story of a young lady at our school who will go blind after complications from a kidney transplant.

But heartache is heartache.

Patching for six hours is quite the ordeal for a little kid acutely aware that he is different than his peers, though we promise he’s loved all the same.  I gathered Steven in my arms several times during the summer and into fall, all seven plus years of him.  Over and over and over again, I declared one of God’s promises.  The promise that Steven is deeply loved and not alone when he does the hard work of patching.

And then, about a month ago we learned that Steven’s hard work paid off.  He has regained sight, thank God, and patching was reduced to three hours a day outside of school.  We breathed a sigh of relief and offered up trembling hands in praise and thanksgiving.

The Newest News.  The appropriate word is latest, but whatever. Alliteration. 

February 11, 2017

Copying and pasting my Facebook status after Steven’s appointment:

To all of my friends familiar with Steven’s vision story: we received the best news from his pediatric optometrist yesterday.  For the next three months we only have to patch two, yes two, hours a day!  In almost eight years, minus the times we’ve had to use eye drops to blur vision or left a contact out to act like patching during infancy and toddlerhood, we have never, ever had to patch for only two hours!

You guys, this news is the best news ever!  I’m so thankful and excited and absolutely feeling every single feeling in between, and you all know I have big feelings.

Not only that, Steven’s behavior was nothing short of amazing during the exam!  He even held the door open for me several times.  He was polite and conversed well with Dr. P.  For those who know my out-of-the-box child, you know this was a day of double miracles.

The heart of this mama was dreading Steven’s appointment.  We’ve received such good news, but also much bad news during our visits with the pediatric optometrist.  I will praise God after each type of visit, but oh, what a relief!

In response to our good news, the Presbyterian girl in me can’t help thinking of the Doxology.  My voice is shot from this cold and I can’t breathe well enough to sing it, but I’ll write it here for you, after all, writing is my jam.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;

praise him, all creatures here below;

praise him above, ye heavenly host;

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Last winter after Steven’s glasses broke.  Again.

I would need to be calm and cool.  Our favorite technician, K. could tell Steven’s glasses didn’t accidentally break.  Sigh.  The Holy Spirit and mama intuition is telling me he’s angry that he’s different.  Little Nicole hated her hearing aids for the same reason.  Grown up Nicole knows it really doesn’t matter.  You have to do what you have to do to see or hear.  Now is the time to wear glasses, anyway, the bigger and bolder the better.

It’s hard to explain these truths to an eight-year-old.  He’s still learning that God loves him and doesn’t want him to be the same.  In fact, God sets us apart on purpose.  We are uniquely made and he calls us his own.  It hurts watching my son learn this one, but learn it he must.  We all need to be reminded of this painful yet life-giving lesson from time to time.  I know I do.

We went back to see Dr. P. in May.

We were told to continue patching for two hours daily.  Steven got new glasses.  His first big kid frames, not the bendy little kid kind.  Dr. P promised he could give up patching on his ninth birthday.  Before you get too excited, at a certain point eye muscles aren’t going to respond to patching.  It’s exciting all the same.  Just think of it, no more patching in merely six to seven months!

Big kid glasses for our big kid.

I went with Steven and the second grade class to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle in late May or early June.  I just explained to my friend and fellow chaperone that Steven can’t see 3-D.  We were at an IMAX movie for part of the field trip.  During the film, Steven grabbed at the air around him.  Does this mean he can see 3-D?

Which leads to this Monday, Greg’s birthday, solar eclipse day.  It’s been three months.  It’s time to trek to the eastside to see Dr. P. (Edited to add: Steven’s appointment is actually Tuesday the 22, I found out later.  But wouldn’t it have been awesome to have his appointment the same time as the solar eclipse?)

Tribe of friends, family, prayer warriors, please pray.  I would love it if you took a moment or more to pray for Steven’s eye exam.  It would be great if Steven’s eyes improved, and patching for less hours hasn’t negatively impacted his vision or eye structure.  My mama heart can’t handle the thought of retina detachment, which sometimes happens with Morning Glory.  Always pray against that.

To him be the glory either way.  Though I confess, my heart is set on good news.  We will be brave no matter what because he is here, never far off from the brokenhearted.

Steven’s vision has come a long way since that June afternoon in Woodinville.  Through the years God has used Steven and his eyesight as a divine avenue.  Through it, he’s teaching me to be brave when life is hard.  I don’t mean without fear or anxiety.  I have plenty of that.  No, being brave means charging ahead only because I’m clinging to God and letting him hold me through the sea of unknowns.  And as I cling to him, I’m learning just how scary and exhilarating, even satisfying, it is to praise him in such times.  It hurts to acknowledge that he cares for Steven even more than I do.  It seems impossible to this mama, but true all the same.

There are worse things than being far-sighted, I know.  There are worse things that can happen to a child than Morning Glory Syndrome.  Definitely. Still, it would be awesome if there’s major improvement in our little boy’s eyesight tomorrow.  We are holding onto hope, clinging to the truth that God is our loving Father, never far off.  He hears each and every prayer.

Edited to add: The appointment went fabulously.  I haven’t the chance to write about it, properly at least.  This is what Dr. P said at the end of our time together: 

“You’re going to write about this, right?”

And, “You should probably include this in next year’s Christmas letter.”

You know me well, Dr. P.  You know me well.

Hope, Always Hope

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All day I’ve been wanting to write about tomorrow, and what’s going to happen.  As it turns out, Greg and I are in the middle of a painting project and, although everything in me wants to sit at the keyboard and type, it wouldn’t exactly be the kindest of choices.

I’m going to spare you the details of our home improvement project.  This isn’t one of those blogs.  Nope, I’m not into writing about finding the perfect gray paint at Sherwin-Williams.  The perfect gray is a lie.  We have ten to twelve sample shades of gray ranging from Nebulous White to Krypton on the walls of our small rambler to prove it.  We decided on a lovely shade of blue-gray called Passive which is the less complicated choice, prettier too.  My life is complicated enough without factoring in the hunt for the perfect gray.

Kate did find the perfect gray.  I remembered reading about it after the fact.  So did my neighbor and my friend Sarah who came by yesterday to get our old piano, as did the Frontier guy who hooked up our Fios connection.

I’m hardly a DIY kind of writer, but I could easily get behind writing about feelings regarding home improvement, and how I felt about each choice we’ve made.  I’m a feeler through and through.  You know that by now.

But I won’t. No one wants to read about it, not even me.   Instead, I’m going to spend five or so minutes copying and pasting old Christmas letters to give you a picture of tomorrow morning and why I’m feeling (more than) a little anxious.  I realize this method is a bit disjointed.  My apologies.  It’s all I have time for.

The beginning of Lauren’s hearing story, 2013.

“I’m learning that faith is of the mustard seed variety. The unexpected happened this spring when our tiniest tiny was suspected of having the same type of hearing loss originating in the same ear at the same age as mine. How we wrestled with this one.

Our fears were confirmed in May. Lauren was diagnosed with a high-frequency hearing loss in her right ear not present at birth. Since the pediatric audiologist was unable to complete testing due to the sleepiness of our little one, she ordered us back in July, three days after Lauren’s second birthday. Until then we could only guess where Lauren’s hearing fell on the mild to moderate hearing loss spectrum.

We prayed and prayed, but our prayers were the half-hearted kind. Frankly, I didn’t believe God would heal Lauren’s hearing loss because he hadn’t healed mine. On this side of heaven we will never know why some prayers are answered and others aren’t, at least in the way we anticipate.

But he knows our wildest hopes and deepest hurts, for us in the area of hearing loss and deafness. He knows our fragile faith, tiny as the mustard seed, almost too delicate and afraid to voice. He held these in his tender hands and said Yes. On July 16, Tympanometry for both ears showed perfect curves where once there was none in the right, indicating normal middle ear function, followed by a perfect Audiologic Evaluation for both ears. Repeat tests in October yielded similar results. Thank you Jesus, thank you. And thank you those who came around us during our season of darkness. Your faith encouraged us and your prayers reached the throne room of heaven. Amen and Amen.”

And then came 2015.  I wrote about learning how to be brave and holding onto hope.

“A heartache worth sharing has to do with hearing. It always does. I took Lauren in for her annual hearing check in October. On the way to Children’s Bellevue my phone was stuck on You Make Me Brave by Amanda Cook and Bethel Music, which is my current favorite since Courtney sang it last spring. I didn’t realize I had it on repeat. I guess the technical term is loop. I didn’t even know my phone looped or that it could get stuck on loop or that I had a loop icon to begin with. Come to think of it, it might not be called looping.  All I know is that I just completed an iOS update and everything was wonky with iTunes. You Make Me Brave filled our van over and over, at least 7-10 times on our way to Bellevue because Lauren and I took the backroads to avoid 405 tolls.

As your love

In wave after wave

Crashes over me,

Crashes over me

For you are for us

You are not against us

Champion of Heaven

You made a way for all to enter in.

I’m pretty sure God wanted me to know that his love for Lauren crashes over her in wave after wave. He is for her, not against her. You see, the Tiniest Tiny has lost hearing again, this time in her left ear. This is not the same ear that hearing was lost and restored when she was little. Her loss is conductive (mine is neurosensory or sensory-neuro) and is borderline normal. Although she isn’t technically hard-of-hearing at this point, Lauren’s hearing is not what it once was in that ear. We made an appointment for another hearing evaluation in 3 months. Until then I was told to have her pediatrician clean out her waxy ear because one of the tubes is out but stuck in ear wax. The audiologist is certain that a damaged eardrum will be revealed under all of the lovely wax. My heart broke.

I remember looking at my phone when we left Children’s. The loop icon, if it’s even called that, was not showing. Yet the whole way back You Make Me Brave repeated over and over.

You make me brave

You make me brave

No fear can hinder now the promises you made.

It makes absolutely no sense. It really doesn’t. It’s really hard to be brave when there is something wrong with your child. Despite all that, maybe even because of it, I think being brave means having the courage to believe that God is who he says he is and trust that he will do what he says he will do. And if we’re not sure how to pray and what these promises are, we should ask him. The Bible is pretty clear about them. I’m sensing in the deepest places of my heart that it is not the time for wishy-washy “heal her if it’s your will” prayers. It’s time to call on God to do what he promised even when it doesn’t make sense. He healed her once before. Why not again? It’s time to be brave.

When I look back over these 12 months, and back further over the last two-and-a-half years, I have to remember the promise he gave me about Lauren during her first hearing crisis before he healed her. In my deep place of hurt I wasn’t sure he was for us, but he led me to discover these words about himself, “He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection (Psalm 91:4).”

It didn’t make sense at the time, and it doesn’t always make sense now but I know him, I know him well. This potential hearing disorder, it isn’t from him.

I risk ending this note with a faith story equivalent to a cheesy After School Special. Yet I kind of have to. I have to end in hope because what else is there? It’s December and we are hopeful.

I took Lauren to the pediatrician to have her ears cleaned, to see if the tube could be removed. Under all that wax was a perfect ear drum. Perfect. The pediatrician strongly believes that a combination of one very waxy ear and a tube stuck in wax resulted in a less than normal hearing test. She believes that February’s evaluation will reveal perfect hearing once again. It scares me to write this. Not that I don’t believe Lauren’s hearing has been spared once again. I don’t doubt it for a minute. I’m a little worried that I will write about her healing and then it won’t happen and people will think I’m a nutcase. More so, I’m deeply worried that someone will read this and think God loves Lauren or us more than he loves them. Nothing is further from the truth.”

I’m sorry for rambling on and on.  But Lauren’s story got a little dicey as it unfolded in 2016.

“As for Lauren, I think we’re a little shell-shocked by her story. It knocks the wind out of me, even now. I wrote last year about waiting for February for the follow-up with the pediatric ENT and audiologist to learn more about her hearing loss. How we prayed in the months between visits, many of you prayed, too. I could almost taste the good news that we hoped to get at the upcoming visit to Children’s Hospital. After all, a few years ago Lauren had lost hearing in her other ear and it was fully restored. And we knew from Lauren’s pediatrician that her eardrum had been spared.

Lauren’s story, however, ended up being a story with a twist. We didn’t get the answer we wanted when we wanted it. Something was wrong with the Tiniest Tiny. Lauren had lost more of her hearing.

In the darkness of night we had to abandon our victory dance and learn instead to simply cling to God. We had to learn to let him hold us as he whispered that he is good, always good, that he’s never going to let us down, the whole time feeling that he is.

And then we received the news we dared to hope for.  At another follow-up at Children’s, a specialist assured us that Lauren’s ear could indeed repair itself over time, as ears sometimes do after trauma. When summer came to an end, the same specialist broke the news that hearing in Lauren’s left ear, the one that was lost and lost again, was practically normal, with the potential for more healing to come.

I could have saved time and just skipped to the good news about Steven and Lauren (Steven had a story of his own in 2016). Or I could have ignored it all together and just wrote the typical family Christmas letter. It’s what normal people do and would have been kinder to my sensitive heart. I most definitely should have included more details about Em. She’s an absolute doll, and she’s thriving by the way.

But it’s kind of hard to truly rejoice with us unless you know where we’ve come from, what we’ve been through. Because for us, and many of you, it’s been a year of camping out in the middle of the story, with all the uncertainty that comes when victory is out of sight and the days are long and hard.

Yet hope and uncertainty go hand-in-hand, with hope winning out every time. I desperately want to shout this message to the world, or at least write about it more. I’m sensing in my bones and in the deepest part of my soul that now is the time to write.”

And now tomorrow.

I’m going to quickly wrap up so I can get back to paining my house Passive gray.  The reason I did all that copying and pasting nonsense is because tomorrow is the day of Lauren’s annual appointment with the audiologist at Children’s Hospital.  I’m feeling all the feels.   It doesn’t help that one of my audiologist friends recently pointed out that, since my mom and I have a genetic hearing loss, Lauren most likely does too.  It means the Tiniest Tiny could loose hearing again.  I hadn’t connected the dots.

Please pray for us, for Lauren particularly.  I’m holding onto hope, praising God.  I will always praise him.  Not matter what, I will praise him.  But I’m scared.

At the same time, I was reminded this morning at church that God still heals the deaf.  That wasn’t the point of the sermon, but what I needed to hear.  Oh, how I needed the powerful reminder, the encouragement.  God is for Lauren.  God is not against her.  God is able to accomplish infinitely more than what we dare hope for.

That is all.  I’ve got to publish this and get back to all things paint-related.  And quickly too.  I can hear Steven in the other room pestering Greg with a million questions about painting.  Oh dear, I think Greg’s letting him paint.

I love you, dear readers.  All two or three of you.  Thank you for praying for my girl.  Thank you for hoping and praying along with me when life is uncertain and kind of hard.  Thank you for trusting with me in the Name of Jesus.

Edited to add: In the spirit of keeping it real, I should add that in the short span of time it took to publish this little essay-of-sorts and post it to Facebook, Lauren wandered into the living room and splattered herself in fresh paint.  At least she’ll never have to search for the perfect gray.  While hunting down the paint stain remover to treat Lauren’s Hanna Andersson sundress, I managed to knock over and shatter a new bottle of Opi light blue nail polish over the toilet, tile, baseboard and wall of the master bath.  

The moral of this story is that good things never come from blue nail polish.  And always watch your kid instead of sharing your blog post with Facebook Land when your husband is painting the living room’s walls Passive Gray.

Random Thoughts On Healing

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Here’s the deal:  I’ve spent many years praying for the healing of my hearing loss.  And it’s been hard, really hard.  And harder, still, when I think of how my prayers for my own healing overlap with prayers for two of my three children and their very different losses.

Of course, the intensity of my prayers for healing comes and goes.  There’s seasons when I find myself crying out to the Lord regularly, begging him to make these ears of mine work and make them work already.  Yet in other seasons, healing is a fleeting thought simmering in the back of my mind.  In times like these, the need for healing is concealed by the urgent needs of here and now.  But it’s always there, this longing for something better.

A thought, possibly a divine one, came to me last week through the Holy Spirit, and homework from a Beth Moore Bible study, of course.  He prompted my heart to focus on the promises of his kingdom that are forever, rather than viewing the kingdom and its promises as promises yet to come, like my hearing.  Does that make sense?

Here’s what I mean:  It’s hard for me to pray, day in and day out, season after season, for the one thing that isn’t getting better: my hearing loss.  Especially since my hearing is supposed to get worse.  But, this sensitive heart of mine is encouraged to keep on asking, and asking again, because the answer is guaranteed to come and will never be taken away.

What’s more, does it matter when it’s going to happen? Well, of course it does.  I’m impatient.

I’m going to ramble for a minute, just go with me.  Let’s pretend that waiting for my healing is like waiting for a party to start.  I know the party has been planned, the invitations have been sent out to the heavenly hosts, the venue reserved.  But I haven’t received my invitation, and I’m getting frustrated.  Even though I know in the end it will be a grand affair, worth it in the long run.  For it will be a surprise party, and I’ll be the guest of honor.  And it won’t matter if the big event happens today or tomorrow, next year, or years from now, on this side of heaven or the next.  In the end, I’ll look back and it will not matter.  It’s going to happen all the same.

If it’s not like a party, than maybe it’s like a grand celebration at the end of a race.  Once again, I’m mixing metaphors.

Either way, in just a little while he will make all things new.  All things.  My hearing.  Lauren’s hearing.  Steven’s vision.   It doesn’t matter so much that the healing hasn’t come, since this is all temporary anyway.  Well, of course it matters.  But maybe, just maybe, living with loss or a different sensory ability (never disability) isn’t the short end of the stick that it appears to be.  You’d better believe me when I say that it feels like the short end of the stick.  But is it?

I keep praying, asking, and hoping for the healing now.  But the other side of heaven isn’t so far off.  I know that when we look back, it won’t be.  I say this with trembling hands lifted high in praise.  And of course, I will have to lower my trembling hands from time to time, long enough for me to wipe away the tears.

Because it hurts to wait.

I’m reminded of the wedding reception miracle found in John 2.  I know it’s taking everything out of context, but it’s how my mind works.  Other women can multi-task.  My mind specializes in making random God-connections.  And these connections are holy, for they bring me back to him.

Remember at the reception when Jesus filled the containers that were set aside for ceremonial cleansing, and had them filled with water by the servants to be turned into something better?  The wine was incomparable, a wine above other wines.  The Master of Ceremonies approached the bride groom, baffled really.  How could the best wine be saved for last?  But you see, I never realized it before but the best was yet to come.  It was Jesus revealing his glory in perfect time.

Maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with races and finish lines and surprise parties and healing, but I think it does.

I’m reminded once again that his timing is perfect.  Always perfect, no matter when his glory is revealed.  Even when it hurts.  His timing is perfect, every single time.

He’s saying this to me, more and more.

His timing is perfect.  The best is yet to come.  Hold on, he seems to say, it’s coming.