Trust.

We’ve been doing a lot of trusting these days. Over the last few months Dad has undergone some tests that have shown the targeted therapy he has been on for the past year has begun to lose some of its effectiveness. He will continue to remain on the targeted therapy but has also been accepted into a clinical trial at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.

I must admit that when I first heard the news about the cancer starting to grow again, I was disappointed but at peace. A strange mix of emotions that are hard to grapple with. I have complete faith that God can heal my Dad fully and completely, I am disappointed that He hasn’t yet. I have hope that all things DO work together for good for those that love God and are called according to His purpose, but I also want to see my idea of what His purposes are be the ones that are fulfilled. I am certain and secure in His goodness and love, but I wonder what part of His goodness and love could mean possibly losing my Dad.  

Christina is a dear friend of mine and her father, Harry, was in a tragic bike accident last year and is now quadriplegic (please add him to your prayers). We have wrestled our way through emotions to find the solid ground of truth together this past year and I am grateful for her. She was able to give words to what I was feeling: ‘We are children of God,’ she said. ‘And like a child we see the Father withholding something we see as good, but a parent always has more information and a reason why something is withheld…and it’s usually for the continued good of the child. That doesn’t make the child less certain of the parent’s love or break the child’s trust in their parent, but it does come with frustration on the child’s part. Because they don’t have the knowledge to see how it will work out for their good in the end.’

C.S. Lewis really says it best in his book A Grief Observed: When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’

We continue to pray and trust.