All There

He lay there belly first in the sand with his smiling face lifted up to the sky. I looked down at him, unsure if I was really ready to get sandy and wet. There was something about him I couldn't help, but take in.

He was all there. He was not worried.

I have bore many worries ever since we got the news over a month ago that he was pre-AML right as we turned the corner of his 2nd birthday. Despite my trust in God, of course the worry as his mother comes down in dark waves that take you to depths you don't want to go alone. Ever.

As I stood looking at him and seeing how happy he was, knowing this would be the last time he would be at the ocean shore for quite some time before his transplant, I couldn't help but be reminded of how I should be more like him. He was doing the exact thing that God wants me to do. Be all there. No worries about the future.

I sat down next to him and let the sand sift through my fingers, enjoying the water splash over us and ebb back again. We were there together and I allowed myself to be all there until the fears crashed back in trying to rob my joy yet again.

The irony is that I do trust God. If the worst thing happens. If my child died. I still believe God is good. That he loves me and that he knows what is best for me, but I would live with an ache that would never erase, and I know I would never be the same. And I'm not sure I would be a person you would want to live with.

I never thought this world would be my world, even as I walked in and out of the cancer clinic passing the little bald heads as we went in and out for labs. I saw in their faces the heaviness of seeing their child's life on the line and I wanted to understand, but didn't know how. I was always lighter. I don't think you really know until it's your reality and you feel the weight of what it means on your shoulders.

Even with all the questions swirling in my mind, I know that the grace of God is given in the exact portions you need it, exactly when you need it. I cannot fathom how His redeeming grace will be with me as we walk this road together. But without a a doubt, I know it will come at the exact moments I need it, because it's happened already.

Sitting in that room for the first time, meeting the transplant doctor and hearing all the things that could possibly happen to your child as he plays innocently on the floor with toys, I did not cry. I have no idea why. In fact, the doctor was worried she didn't adequately explain everything, because in that moment, God's grace was filling me with peace despite what I was hearing. He has Judah's life in the palm of his hands! I have no choice, but to walk forward and trust Him, that he is good!

I often wonder what it would have been like to be the Israelites lost in the wilderness. They knew the Promised Land was right on the other side, but they didn't want to trust God. They were content to sit in the hot, blazing desert where they could control little around them, than to follow God into the land that He was giving them rich with milk and honey.

I remember once digging my heels in and refusing to go where God was taking me. How can this be God's plan? How can He be doing this to me? None of this makes sense. This is NOT right? What on earth is happening? 

The surgeon scribbled onto a pad of paper what my insides would look like and explained I would wake up with a bag stuck to my skin. I was septic and it was poisoning my body very quickly. They had 4 hours to rush me into surgery and save my life by removing my entire large intestine, so ulcerated from colitis it couldn't even function anymore. It had burst. As a 20 year old college student, I could not even fathom how the heck this strange situation came into my life and how God would use something like this to prepare me for this time with Judah. I didn't go through that trial willingly. God gave me no other option and I was mad about it for awhile. 

I missed my exit as I listened to his coordinator tell me the news I had been waiting to hear. They had chosen a donor and they had sent the paperwork to Europe to be then delivered to my donor who would receive the call that they had, in fact, the exact same protein as my wild 2 year old little boy. They were his match. When could he donate?

I was filled with a relief and a heaviness all as the same time. This was real. This was happening.

I can't say what will happen at the end. This is a story that God is writing and I'm flipping the pages of the book as fast as I can trying to read about what happens next in the plot. You get to follow along with me and see the rawness as it comes.

I know one thing for sure. I want to be like the little boy belly down in the sand not a care in the world with a zeal for life that stops you in your tracks and makes you sit right down in that surf, get sandy and wet, and try to remember what it was like as a kid again with no worries in mind. It's here where God wants us. It's in this place of trust as we pour out our fears to Him, knowing that He is the good good Father and He will take me, Judah, and you into that Promised Land, whatever that looks like and wherever he has it. This side of Heaven or the other. I trust you, Lord Jesus with my life. And I trust you Lord with Judah's life. Will you trust him with yours? Make us new, Lord. 

This is one of many to come as I chronicle our journey through bone marrow transplant with my 2 year old Judah. My voice as a mother through it all. Check out Judah's facebook page for the most current updates.