Gods Breath

Gods breath poured out over my soul like a morning fog filled with a cool refreshing mist, but there was a battle between guilt and fear brewing inside my heart.  I was still struggling with the news of our son’s chromosome deletion disorder and the guilt of knowing I had passed on defective chromosomes that left him with obvious problems.  We still didn’t know the extent of the problems this tiny little deletion would cause and honestly I was a little overwhelmed and dazed by the diagnosis.

The news had come five days before Christmas which in my opinion was really crappy, but we really wanted to know.  I’m not sure the timing was very good on Gods part.  Here we are a few days before we celebrate the birth of his son and all I want to do is throw a little pity party over our situation.  It really sucked knowing there was no quick fix for our son’s problem.  Doctors couldn’t tell us what the future would be like for him and that frightened the hell out of me.  Show me one rational and sound minded parent out there who doesn’t want the best for their child.  We wanted the best for our son too, but the uncertainty of not knowing if we could actually provide it was difficult.

As time past and our son grew older we found ourselves scheduled for surgery at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for children.  Wakeland had a condition which was causing the muscles in his legs to pull his legs together at his knees.  The surgery would release the Adductor muscles so he could get his legs apart, which hopefully would allow him to learn to walk.  Just before his third birthday we checked into the hospital.

I’ve never had to do anything as difficult as leave my child in the hands of the surgeon on the morning of his surgery.  Before I even made it to the elevator I was crying.  Then I proceeded to break down.  The fear of something going wrong and losing our child was so strong it consumed me.  I was so in love with my son and unwilling to give him up.  I wanted to be in control and I wanted God to back off.  Hadn’t we suffered enough when we learned about the chromosome problem?  Now we have to endure a painful surgery and body cast that would last for over a month.  But the beauty of God was real and evident that day.  In spite of my lack of faith and trust in Him, he still came near to me and showed his grace.  By the time I reached the surgery waiting room, God had breathed his peace upon me and I felt like I was in worship with him.  He was so close I felt like I could have touched him.  His presence was real.  It was calming.  And it penetrated through my anger at him and soothed my soul.  I didn’t deserve it and I’m not even convinced I even wanted it.  I was happy and perfectly content with my self loathing, but He knew what I needed and met me in the waiting room that day.

I’ll always remember it as a special time between me, God, and my son Wakeland.  I know God was as close to Wakeland that day as he was to me.  I know now that Wakeland was safe in Gods hands even though I was unwilling to release my control to him.  That continues to be the mystery and wonder of whom God is to me and I now seek for opportunities to experience God in this way each day.

Wakeland came through the surgery just fine.  There were complications a week later, but nothing the doctors weren’t able to fix.  The 33 days he had to wear the body cast proved to be the most trying and difficult time we’d ever had as a family.  By the time the cast came off, we were exhausted, beaten down and broken.  We longed and craved for sleep and rest, but it didn’t come and we only grew more tired and worn out.  It was at this time when things started getting more difficult for our marriage and we were starting to crumble even if we hadn’t yet realized it.

Questions of Concern

Have you noticed how bad parents can be with the comparing game?  For instance, you walk up to a couple of your friends in the hallway at church and they are totally involved in a conversation about their kids.  You stop and listen for just a moment as one says “my little Johnny just rolled over all by himself and he’s only four months old” and the other person replies, “oh how sweet, my little Suzie just said momma and she just turned three months old!”  You walk away thinking “Yeah right!  But secretly wonder what’s wrong with your kid, because he seems to be developing much slower.”  You feel hurt, rejected and you’re left wondering if you’ll ever fit in or will your friends decide to move on leaving you to question if you’ll ever be accepted.

It happens more often then you might think.  We can be cruel and hurtful people at times and not even know we are doing it.  At times pride and self promotion seem to overrule any possibility of a normal, healthy, and humble conversation.  We constantly compare, size up our competition, and promote, all in the name of the god of individualization.

When we were new parents we were so proud of our son.  He was so sweet and precious and was such a good baby.  But we got sucked into the competition with all of our friends when he was about four months old.  It was clear every Sunday that our child was way behind all our friends’ kids.  You could just stand at the door of the nursery and it was obvious.  We mentioned our concern  to our doctor, but he felt it was too early to be alarmed.  His answer was “all kids develop at different rates.  Maybe he’s just a late bloomer.”

So, we continued along as if there was nothing to be concerned about.  Eight months comes along and our son is obviously being left in the dust.  All his little friends in the nursery are blowing past him at record breaking speed and here we are standing alone with questions and concerns.  Thinking back on it now, I wonder how many of our “Christian” friends saw the same thing we did and discussed it with their spouses.  Why didn’t anyone have the courage to say to us, “I think something might be wrong with your child?”  I know that would be hard to do and it would even be hard for me to do with someone, but I have to believe we would have welcomed a friend speaking up and agreeing with what we obviously could already see.

Our doctor was finally convinced something is up.  At eight months it was as obvious as an obnoxious loud mouth yelling through a bull horn.  THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR KID!  Duh!  And we had plenty of questions.  We were frightened and hurting.  We love our son so much and only want the best for him, so we were anxious and eager to get to the bottom of this.  We wanted to get him some help and we desperately wanted everything to be okay.

We were new parents and didn’t have much of a clue what we were doing, so we obviously had to trust the parade of professionals that were about to march through our lives.  The next ten months was a crazy, heart wrenching, gut punching and utterly frustrating battery of appointments with one specialist after another.  Our son had MRI’s, X-rays, blood tests, and doctor after doctor poking and prodding him.  We had a mountain of paper work that just led to more and more confusion, frustration, and questions.  I can still remember the day one doctor said “your son might have Cerebral Palsy” and how we drove to our church as fast as we could, found our pastor and his wife, and fell on our knees in his office to pray.  We just broke down and lost it.  We had no idea what this meant for our family or what the future would look like for our son. 

I think I questioned God more than my wife.  Why is this happening to us!  Can you hear the comparing and self promotion screaming from that last question?  I have to ask myself if my life would have been easier these past nine years if the question for God would have been why is this happening to our son?  I’m not sure my wrestle with God was about what was happening to my son as much as what I would be giving up and that makes me feel ashamed, sad, and angry that I wasn’t compassionate enough to see the beauty in the situation as clearly as God did.

Life lessons can be hard and crazy at times, but I have to believe if the human nature wasn’t always so self promoting, God would have an easier time teaching us the lessons we need to learn.  It’s amazing how quickly we fall out of rhythm with God when we don’t get our own way, leaving God holding the bag and expecting him to work another miracle when all he really asks from us is to trust Him with everything.

It’s taking me a long time to learn this valuable lesson, but I do believe God is starting to break through my stubborn, prideful, heart and oh how beautiful life can be when we are truly in relationship and rhythm with our wonderful creator.

Joy Comes in the Morning

I never knew what pure joy was like until the morning my son was born and even as I write that comment I feel guilty for saying it, because it seems like a haughty comment, especially to all the people in the world who would give anything to have a child.  It seems ludicrous to even insinuate that joy is measured by what we’ve attained through parenthood and at the same time it’s the single most perfect way for me to describe pure joy. 

I waited the nine months for his arrival filled with fearful anticipation.  Fearful because of the expectations I placed on his life before he was even born.  Fearful because of a conversation I had with God when I was only a teen.  Imagining what my life would be like as an adult, being married and having children, I had a feeling deep within my heart that God was preparing me at an early age for some future heart ache.  Hearth ache in what I identified at the time as a special needs child.  That early conversation and preparation would stick with me through my college years, through the early years of my marriage and even after our son was born.  Vainly, I remember questioning my son’s appearance with my wife and asking if she thought he was alright.  I think I had felt for so long something was going to be wrong, I just wanted to reassure myself that he really was okay.  He looked beautiful to me, but something was still causing a restless feeling within.

We decided not to find out what the sex of our baby would be prior to birth.  We wanted to be surprised, but I think we did everything in our power to will a boy.  We painted the nursery a pale shade of blue decorated in a classic Winnie the Pooh theme.  We bought all neutral colors, but predicted we’d have a girl to any person who asked.  When the moment finally arrived and the doctor held him up and said “it’s a boy” I couldn’t hold back the tears.  What we had unintentionally willed had become a special gift for the two of us to share together.

What we learned was life can be unpredictable much of the time.  We predicted a girl but got a boy and we were happy.  Our boy was perfect and we were excited about the days ahead as new parents and for all our dreams to finally come true as we started our family together.  However, there was still the haunting conversation between a young naive boy and God that lingered somewhere deep in my soul and no matter how prepared God may have thought I was nothing could have prepared me for the difficult and painful journey we’d soon find ourselves on.

Our Story

I can still remember the day like it happened yesterday.  I had just returned from a men’s retreat with my church and when I arrived home, my wife greeted me with eager anticipation and excitement.  She’d probably been waiting all weekend to take the test, but wanted me to be preset so I could be a part of it.  Within a few minutes we knew we were about to be parents.

We were excited and happy and couldn’t wait to make the appointment with the doctor to have our initial thoughts confirmed by a professional.  Those box tests aren’t always accurate, so we wanted to be sure before we started telling our family and friends.  It was one of the longest, hardest, and difficult waits we’d ever endured.  We wanted to share our excitement with everyone else, but decided to wait until we were 100% sure.  At the time, we didn’t know this would end up being one of the many difficult times we waited for answers.

Over the next few days I’ll be sharing our story.  A story of joy, unexpected twists and turns, questioning, love, grace, anger, depression, and faith.  The road we’ve walked hasn’t been easy, it’s been very difficult, but it hasn’t been too difficult for us to endure.  This will be the story of how we’ve learned, grown, and wrestled with God.  How we’ve tried to embrace our own efforts and strength and learned that we must rely on God for his strength.  It’s a story that is incomplete and a story that’s still being written.  We don’t know the end or the in between, but we do know who holds the pen!

I don’t know what this weeks writings are going to look like.  I don’t even know what I’m going to say.  But I know that it’s a story that needs to be shared.  It’s time for me to finally put the feelings, the battles,  the regrets, and the joys on paper.  This will be more for me than anyone else, but someday my son will read these and know how much we truly love him.