Life Changes Gears – A few days later…
11-19-16
Had a chat with God tonight. I let Him know I wasn’t happy with the details of His plan for my daughter, Evelyn. He understands. And He mentioned by way of Romans 5:1-5 that He can handle the criticism and that I should rest assured that He isn’t at odds with my little girl—or me and my wife. He loves us. He is doing something wonderful. And we only need to look to the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus, to confirm this. I reminded Him that I’m still pretty pissed. Again, He gets it and will work with me to get over it. We’re going to meet tomorrow morning in worship to get the ball rolling. I’m pretty much just going to show up. He assured me He’d do all the work.
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11-20-16
I had my first post-diagnosis meeting with God this morning. I guess it went pretty well. Just between you and me, I was choking on my emotions pretty much the whole time. I figured He was going to say the same things He always says—and I was right. He did. Strangely, though, it was a great comfort that nothing had changed. The consistency and the almost “autopilot” of my time was familiar and very predictable. I appreciated this, especially when everything else seems to be so… well… unpredictable.
There were a lot of people there. Interestingly, before anything started, He took a moment to lead the whole group to understand that the same illness had been detected in all of us, and then without a pause, He treated the whole group with the exact same medicine. I didn’t necessarily feel any different after the dosage, but I do remember reading somewhere that the whole regiment wouldn’t be a sprint, but rather a marathon. Well, the guy who said it—Paul—called it a race.
One more thing. At one point during the meeting, He introduced me to a guy named Isaiah who He’d already instructed quite a long time ago to tell me something. Essentially, he said that by virtue of the very same medicine God had already given, a time was on the horizon when my daughter’s disease would be reversed, that the sadness pressing upon me and my wife would be healed, and all would be long forgotten. And then before he finished speaking, he reminded me that even now, God was always on call for us. In fact, he said before we would even try to call for Him, He’d answer.
I’d say it was a pretty fruitful appointment. He gave me some reading assignments to prepare for next week’s meeting: Jeremiah 23:5-8; Romans 13:8-14; and Matthew 21:1-9. He asked me to pay very close attention to the last one because when we get together again, He intends to tell me why the Season of Advent—the beginning of the Church Year—starts with the telling of the Palm Sunday account… the gateway of the Lord’s passion. He said something about knowing what to expect from a most particular baby to be born in Bethlehem and how each and every one of the doses I will receive from here on out, like Palm Sunday, will be pointing to (because they’re taken from) a Friday He likes to call “Good.”
Not sure if any of this makes sense. These are just my notes from the session. I’m still sorting through them. And I’m still pretty pissed, by the way. But again, God is aware, and as before, He told me He can handle it. It doesn’t change anything between us.
More to come, I would imagine.
