The  last year and a half has been hard. Really hard. Watching your once “normal”, healthy, eight year old decline and helplessly standing by while dozens of tests and specialists tell you they don’t know what’s wrong has a way of slowly turning a parent inside out. You know it’s something serious, and you relentlessly pray for answers, but when you get them, you’re still grossly unprepared for the reality of it.

We now have TWO answers and I don’t like either one. The first is called Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 8. Rare, genetic, degenerative, and would slowly rob her of her mobility over about fifteen years. You can see my blogs, The Dark and Alibaster Jar if you’re interested in seeing where that brought me. The second, newest, is Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis. I held it together slightly better (growth?) the second time around. See Hope . Also rare, genetic, and progressive, this one explains her cognitive decline, personality changes, leg pain, etc. The good news is that this one has an available treatment. The idea being to replace what her body isn’t making and pray that we can maintain normal numbers and stop the progression. The bad news is that each of our boys has a 25% chance of having this disorder as well and we are waiting on their genetic test results.

I’ve blogged a lot about the pain, loss, and grief over this journey but He has faithfully brought me through and given me so much love, truth, and hope. Everything I need, when I need it most. Thank you Jesus! The last couple weeks I’ve been struggling through something a little less dramatic. Sadness. The kind of sadness that hovers silently in the shadows of my mind while joy, excitement, hope, love, fatigue, frustration and worry bump around the rest of the space in there, jostling for position. It’s heavy presence is always there. Waiting. Just waiting, for worry or frustration to bump up against it, form an alliance, and squeeze hot tears out of unsuspecting eyes. I’m finding this happens most often when I come face to face with our present reality. Without having a chance to brace myself first.

The other day we were tackling 3rd grade homework when frustration and worry ganged up on me with sadness. We spent an hour repeatedly going over which hand was the hour hand and which hand was the minute hand. Something she had mastered in first grade. Abstract concepts are next to impossible with her short term memory impairment. Twenty minutes later, her newfound impulsiveness led to a screaming toddler and crying 8 year old because she had gotten frustrated, pinched him, and immediately felt terrible. At bedtime, she told me she didn’t want to go to Sunday school because she got confused. There was truly less light in my baby girl’s eyes! By the time I went to bed, I was in tears.

Father, PLEASE! Please don’t let us lose the compassionate heart you blessed her with too! Please don’t allow this disorder to rob her of the ability to understand the huge faith you’ve given her! This heart, this faith, that have been such a source of hope and comfort. Such a gift of grace to us!

Sadness dogged me the next morning and followed me through her occupational therapy session which left her tremor worse, her body sweating and exhausted, and her complaining of the pain in her legs. And as I broke out the Motrin:

“Mom, I’m sad.”

She has a few things to be sad about. “Why are you sad, baby?”

“I’m sad for all of the people that lived before God gave us Jesus.”

Her compassionate heart! But that’s a pretty abstract concept to grasp. Does she really get it?

“I wish He could have helped them get to Heaven too. But I’m sure happy that we were born after Jesus!”

Smiling through tears. “Me too baby girl, me too.”

Tear filled eyes closed and lifted to a bitterly cold Midwest winter sun, being covered in His grace and love, my heart cried out my thanks for a gift so beautiful!

I have little difficulty with the abstract. I’ve been blessed with an exceptional memory. I have no physical challenges. I’m pretty sure I aced third grade word problems involving reading a clock. But, I didn’t know the Gospel until I was in my thirties, and I struggled to understand and accept the love of my Savior for longer than I care to admit. (It really is a kind of illogical love, isn’t it?!) And I’m too embarrassed to disclose how long it took my heart to bleed for those that were, and are, perishing. Her existence in the concrete, the present, has apparently not hindered her faith, or her compassionate heart in the slightest. It begs the question, which one of us truly has a greater challenge?!  He will make clear to her all she truly needs to know, just as He will for me.

Baby girl, you bring that beautiful heart and concrete faith, I will bring the abstract, and we will grow in Christ together!

 

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1 Corinthians 12:4-11New International Version (NIV)

⁴ There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. ⁵ There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. ⁶ There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

⁷ Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. ⁸ To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,^[a] and to still another the interpretation of tongues.^{[b] 11} All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

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