52 weeks

   

   It has been 52 weeks today since we started our Friday morning with a drive together to Billings and ended our Friday bloody and broken on that same road.  There was nothing in particular about that day; just a routine day of work and home school, followed by a dinner date with our girls and shopping for Easter dresses and spring chicks.  Then out of the dark of night a catastrophe came upon us, spinning us off the road, off the course we thought we were on, and into chaos, pain and months of uncertainty that have continued now 52 weeks later. 

   To be certain, today is not as horrific as that night ended.  Not even close.  But today is not as carefree as that day started either.  I truly believe that I have felt the weight of every day this year.  If it were possible, I feel like I have lived 1000 days in the last 365.  Worn from nights filled with nightmares and restless sleep, night terrors that rattle our little girls, and nights spent pleading and praying for the freedom of our oldest girl.  Sometimes I still wake with their lingering screams of terror echoing in my head until I realize that I am safely in my room.    I have awoken to the vision of Naomi, still as death, mangled in the seat next to me, and I swear that she is really gone.  My breath will not fill my chest and  I cannot believe that she actually lived.  But then sleep passes from my eyes, and I stare into the night sky from by bedroom and realize that she is still here, alive, lovely, but chained by pain that has never left her body.  Relief and grief come over me and I try to fall back to sleep, most times successful after prayer and tears. If I kick the blankets off me and get chilled, I will wake up in the middle of the road, standing over Kit, mutilated, shivering; but then I hear and feel him next to me, warm in our bed.

  Tears.  I am worn by tears.  Certainly I am the daughter of man who is very in touch with his feelings, and so crying isn’t something I am unaccustomed to.  However, this year I have tear streaked more pages of multiple journals than I ever thought possible.  Tears of gratitude.  Tears of pleading.  Tears that come from the stress of medical visit after medical visit, medical bills that never quit coming, courtrooms and legal terms and lawyers.  Tears that began in relief when we finally realized what exactly was hurting Naomi, and then turned into heartache when we realized that she is facing the uncertainty that comes with uncommon genetic conditions.  However, I am comforted by the knowledge that the Bible says that God collects our tears in a bottle.  I am praying that He will collect ours and pour them out over us in continued showers of blessings. 

   I am worn by the emotional highs and lows that come from feeling that every single day is a gift.  Nothing can be taken for granted.  Nothing.  Not a single breath.  Each minute that we have since that night feels like it was not meant to be, but we were spared, and so there is no such thing as mundane anymore.  Mundane is comfortable, and there is peace that comes from the rhythms of the mundane in life.  Some days I feel like I recognize our lives, with the background of chaos that is created in a family with 6 children.  But then I am met with the reality that our rhythms are different now than they were just 52 weeks ago.  One child is still struggling, far from vibrant life, and we are adjusting to life with ongoing medical care.  In 2 weeks she will leave us for 2 months to fight for her health. She will spend 2 long months across the country with a man who understands her injuries and she will hopefully learn how to move past this year of physical pain.   So while she is gone, our family rhythms will be different still.  I miss mundane sometimes.

   This year has also had some of the most intensely beautiful moments we have ever experienced as well.  On that horrid night Naomi awoke from what I believed was death and cried out my name.  Just hours later a man held my hand and told me that Kit was not going to die.  We are certain Faith saw the angel that carried her daddy out of our car, and then again that angel appeared out of the dark and prayed over him on the road.   Those were just the beginnings of beauty in the darkness.  We have been the recipients of other human’s acts of sacrifice and love.  We have been fed and clothed and provided for when we could not provide for ourselves.  We have had more prayers uttered with our names than ever before.  God has seen fit to bless us with new friendships that feel as if they skipped right over the precursory “get to know you” months, and straight into the real and deep.  Skilled medical hands and tender hearts have served us medically time and again with compassion and earnest effort.  God has opened doors for expert medical care that I could not have created for myself, even being a doctor.  Our sons have come along side us, and become men in so many ways.  Selfless and sacrificing, they have served our family’s needs over and over and over.  They are becoming like “shelter from the wind and refuge from the storms, like streams of water in the desert and shadows of a great rock in a thirsty land.”  (Isaiah 32:2) 

   And here in the hardest year of our lives, God has been faithful to His word. Revealing the “treasures of the darkness” (Isaiah 45:3), he has shown us that there is no darkness in Him.  He is full of love and abounding in mercy.  He is always fighting for our hearts, striving for the good in our life.  He has sent angels to encamp around us, to carry us.  He has made us radiant as we gaze upon Him and experience His goodness.   He has shown us very personal ways that he made us and prepared us to save us that night…and the nights after.  He created a girl who stretches more than most, and her neck didn’t break in that car because it could stretch.  He made a man with extra veins in his leg that would provide good blood flow after a blood clot would completely fill his main blood flow pathway.  He helped me listen and learn well lessons in medical school that would eventually come back to me, almost 15 years later, to unlock the keys to our daughter’s freedom.   He has sung over me in nights long with fear, that He is always with me, He never changes.  His word has calmed my heart, when no other human words could. 

   As I look at the pictures of our car that night, as I remember the sounds and forces of violence I still have a hard time reconciling the breath I just exhaled.  Outside of miracles and God’s express plan and purpose for our life that is not yet complete we didn’t live that night.  The middle of this journey is messy, and seems to be far from over.  This year on the anniversary of that night we are once again apart as a family.  The boys and I are headed to New Mexico to say good-bye to my grandpa, and celebrate his 89 year long journey on this earth.  Kit is home with sweet Teags and our girls, one who is sick, one who is sassy and one who is wounded.    But even though we are apart, and worn, and fragile, we are all still alive.  We are treading through the deeps, where trust in our Creator is our only hope.  We awake each day, thankful that we are here, listening for His voice and direction.  We hold onto plans we make loosely, and hold onto him, searching for His direction in each moment.   

   Here in the deep we are worn.  Weathered.  Molded more beautifully into the people God desires us to be.  We have more gray and less brown atop our heads.  There are sweet fine lines from smiling and crying and living another 365 days in aging bodies.  Our hearts are more sensitive than they have ever been before.  Our hands are quick to serve others, reaching out from a deep well of gratitude and love that is dug over time and years like this one.  

   The day after the wreck, I was finally wheeled into Kit’s hospital room, as I couldn’t walk the 15 feet from my room to his.  (Remarkable really, as only hours before I had walked more than 70 feet from our car to where he landed.)  At his side, holding his hand, surrounded by our friends and family, I began to cry.  “I want to go back to dinner last night.  It was so sweet and fun,” I cried.  He gently shook his head, looking at me with love that I have never felt so deeply, “No, love, you don’t.  God didn’t save us for dinner last night to be the sweetest part of our lives.  He brought us through last night alive for something far better than dinner.”  So here we are, 52 weeks later, walking with hope into the all that our future holds, whatever God has planned for our lives.  “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Jeremiah 29:11

“I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy….

Death wrapped its ropes around me; the anguish of the grave overtook me.

I saw only trouble and sorrow.

Then I called on the name of the Lord:  LORD, save me!”

How kind the LORD is!  How good he is!  So merciful, this God of ours!

The LORD protects those of childlike faith; I was facing death, and he saved me.

Return to your rest, my soul, for the LORD has been good to you. 

For you, Lord, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling,

That I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living.”

Psalms 116