I went out Sunday morning for a short time. “God is in this story” by Big Daddy Weave and Katy Nicole played on the car radio. It hit me in such a powerful way and has continued to be something of a mantra that I whisper under my breath.
At that point Jerry had been struggling
with some sort of infection for almost a week which had involved an urgent care
visit and many conversations with health care providers. The circumstances
escalated later Sunday making an emergency room trip necessary. And from there,
test results and symptoms necessitated hospital admittance. That is where we
still are, and I write this post from
his hospital room.
Hopefully test results will come in soon
giving us more insight into how to better treat this infection and turn this
thing around.
I’m still whispering. God is in this story. I don’t understand all the how’s of that, and I stopped asking why many years ago when we encounter things like this. I’ve quoted C.S. Lewis often, “We, in our agony, struggle to pull God down to where we are and force Him to explain that which cannot be explained. Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? . . . All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask―half our theological and metaphysical problems―are like that.”
Why is a
dead-end street.
But what I do know about our situation is
that God planted us high in this hospital with a bank of windows that overlook a
portion of our city and a wide vista of sky. It’s like we are floating in the
air. He has given us caring health care providers that seem at the top of their
profession. He has blessed us with friends and family that send messages of
support and love and pray continually.
Oh, yes. God is in this story.
And God is in your story, too.
No matter how hard, or how long, or how devastating
it seems to be.
When interviewed about this song, Big Daddy
Weave talked about the recent loss of his brother. He hoped this would be a
song of hope for others and remind that God is with us in “all the seasons of
our lives.”
Katy Nicole has shared her story of
serious health challenges, and the resulting depression and anxiety. She said, “I’ve
seen how God has brought glory to His name and how He’s brought good from some
of these really, really bad things.”
Paul seemed to echo these thoughts in his
letters to the Corinthians and the Romans. Here from the Message: “My grace is
enough. It’s all you need” (2 Corinthians 12:9 ). “That’s why we can be so sure
that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good”
(Romans 8:28).
So here we are, in the middle of a process
for which there are not many answers at the present time. But since God is in
this story, we are trusting that He is at work in ways we cannot comprehend. And
that makes all the difference.