I've heard it said to "leave the pain in the past". However, I have come to find it to really be a good thing in my life when I go back to painful things now and then. Now I am not advocating to camp-out in the pain of the past, but a walk through the site can be a great reminder of where we used to be and to keep afresh the things that have happened.
It's been almost 13 years since our second son, Wyatt came down with a rare and debilitating illness. One day he was a thriving, active little 21 month old and the next day, we sat staring at his little paralyzed body with no explanation. Trying to swallow the fact that he went from healthy to fighting for his life was a huge shock to me. I think the lump in my heart kept me from eating despite all the efforts. To top it off, as I pretty much lived in the intensive care unit, we found out that I was pregnant with our third child.
After many days of the mystery illness and watching our son deteriorate before our eyes, Brad remembered hearing a speaker at a conference. He contacted the doctor in California and we were on our way to a diagnosis and treatment before this little guy left us. He ended up having Guillien-Barre Syndrome and a rare version of it called Miller Fisher variant. Basically, Wyatt lost all of the myelin around his nerve endings which resulted in complete loss of motor activity including eating, swallowing, seeing, moving and at times even breathing. He was in a tremendous amount of pain. I had nightmares of those warning monitors going off and being rushed back to ICU for a long time after. We spent weeks in the hospital, and then many months which let to a couple of years of rehab, scary tests and more hospital stays. It was a long haul for Wy and a painful chain of events for me.
I went through some angry times. I would scream inside that this was happening and everyone else was going on with their lives. I would feel mad that no one seemed to understand. I remember feeling frustrated and like a liar when people would commend me on the strength I so-called had. I pushed others away wanting to protect this new version of Wyatt that I held. I wanted my baby back, but not paralyzed, not blind, not this lifeless body barely surviving. I wanted him back and was throwing a fit inside that I didn't have that.
Thankfully, we had a very happy ending to this story. Wyatt is, once again, a thriving, active (now) 15 year old. He is strong, witty, fast, full of determination and has no memory of all that occurred. I am thankful for that. But, I have carried it for him. Once in a while, he will ask me about it and we will talk about the hardship. He is encouraged how we describe his fighting will even when he was little. He likes that he overcame such dyer circumstances. I like it too. But, I know that in the end, this experience was alot about somethings I needed to learn. Ways I needed to grow. Trust I needed to experience. A grip on my child that I needed to release. The Lord revealed His strength to me in those dark days and nights. He graced me with the ability to hang on, even if just barely.
"The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18
When I think about being crushed, it feels like something no one could recover from. But, that isn't true. The Lord just crushed the things in me that were needing crushing. He revealed my pride in motherhood, my self-righteousness in overcoming adversity. He brought to surface the idolatry of depending on my own strength. He showed me that He is Wyatt's Creator and He has the right to do what is best for my boy (and me) no matter how painful that might be. Man-o-man. Insurmountably hard kind of stuff. But how thankful I am to have learned these things. How wonderful to be squeezed out, but not crushed completely. God didn't destroy me. He changed me.
"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed..." 2 Corinthians 4:7-9
Who would have thought that what is held in a clay jar could be so beautiful? A walk back through the site of this time is a fresh reminder. It reminds me of how sad it would be if God would have left me be who I was back then. But He didn't. He surged through it all to deliver humility, grace, trust and show me what I can handle only through His strength and hope in His plan. He gave me this hardship gift as a pathway to talk to others who are in the midst of hurt and unexplained pain. And He gave me an understanding that as much as I love my kids, from the depths of my heart, that He loves them way more, even if that means bringing them home to Him sooner than I want. Can He give the strength to endure that? God is big enough to...yes.
So, I look at that recent picture of Wyatt above. Running a race with all his might. Pushing, feeling pain, TRYING, and it brings tears to my eyes. What a picture of God's grace through a life. What a picture of the journey. But better yet, what a picture of how I pray Wy will continue to live his life that he was given. Pushing through hard things, feeling pain and letting God change him through it. And trying to live a life that fully honors the Lord who created him in the first place. What an amazing treasure that will be inside that clay jar. It's good to go back.
"It is not my ability, but my response to God's ability that counts." ~Corrie Ten Boom
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