Our church has challenged us to show our Hope this holiday season.
If you’ve hung around these parts for any time at all – you know that Hope is kind of a thing here. Some days it’s the only thing.
I could post so many pictures showing what hope means to me.
But for some reason – this is the one that sticks out the most to me.
Laying on that bed, among all those machines and tubes and wires, my baby girl laid fighting for life.
When I took this picture, we had just been given the first bit of “hope” that we had had in over 8 hours.
For those 8 hours prior, she had been essentially in a non-stop “code”. The machines and the medicines were failing. Her body, the shell she uses on this earth, was failing. She was in kidney failure, liver failure, heart failure, respiratory failure and her brain function was decreasing steadily. For 8 hours a team of many doctors and nurses worked to stabilize her. For 8 hours I could not bring myself to go near her room because the sounds and yells and alarms were overwhelming me. For almost that entire 8 hours, I laid curled up in a ball on the cold floor in the hallway near the windows, begging God to give me back my baby…PLEADING with Him to take me instead of her.
And then….
a glimmer of hope.
Her heart finally got a rhythm. The medicines gained ground against the battle they had been losing. The machines were able to push air into and suck it back out of her lungs. Her brain function stabilized. At a low rate but it stopped going down. A tiny little drop of pee appeared in the tubing. One drop. We all cried happily at that one little drop right there in the tubing. It was our hope.
We took it minute by minute for that entire first day after this crash. And then it was hour by hour. And day by day. For almost three weeks.
And God was faithful and mighty – and He did, in His way that is higher than ours, give our girl back to us.
Laying on that floor, as I begged with every ounce of my soul – I heard Him tell me clearly that Kendall had a huge story to tell, and that I had to tell it.
That is why I post about this often gut-wrenching journey. That is why I continue to share on her facebook page – I know that Kendall’s story – of Hope and Triumph and Joy – it must be told.
when it seems like all hope is lost – hold out for that one drop. hold out for one more minute. one more hour. one more day.
“Hope is a good thing”.
~Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption
So maybe, really, my picture of hope should look like this.
Or like this.
Or like this.
But I know what hope is. And I know who the Giver of all Hope is.
And it is because of Him, that we continue to hope…
for good days.
for cures.
for the knowledge of what life is really all about.
Because of Him –
we will keep on keepin on.
#SanctuaryShowHope
T.