a season of no

My friend told me a story. A young man she knows called his parents and thanked them for setting boundaries for him. Now that he was at college, he understood better and appreciated all the times they told him "No." When that same young man was stricken with cancer and died very shortly after his diagnosis, his mother simply recounted that God said "No" to their desperate prayers for a miracle to save him.

I'm sorry for the radio silence. When a friend's daughter turned three in the hospital because her leukemia relapsed (how horrifying is that? a relapse before the age of three, which means she's already HAD IT), I find it hard to say anything frivolous online. It just seems disrespectful and profane. A little girl I have rocked and comforted in the church nursery is slipping away, because God is saying no to repeated prayers for healing. For options. For chemo and radiation to work. For leukemia to go away and never come back. For protection from other illness when her immune system is down.

No.

No.

No.

I know that God is good and can be trusted, but these are the moments that batter my faith, hurt my soul, and leave me with yet another pair of ruined contacts because I cannot stop weeping and praying for my tiny friend and her family. And in the season of "No," I'm encouraged and challenged and wrestling with yet another friend's word from the Lord in the midst of her suffering: "Trust Me. If you knew the ending, you would choose this too."

We don't know the ending. It's been nearly a decade since I was abruptly left a pregnant widow, and I still don't know the ending. I can honestly say that I would never have chosen the path I am on, despite the delights and blessings I am surrounded by today. If given the option, I would have gone another way... but I still don't know the ending. And in the meantime, the "meantime" can be excruciating. Please pray for healing and strength and grace for the Anderson family. Learn more about Allistaire (pronounced al-iss-STAIR, not AL-iss-ster) here.

UPDATE:
All this is also colored by the fact that my last surviving grandparent, my mom's mom, died rather suddenly this last Wednesday. She was surrounded by her children, she leaves behind a legacy of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who love Jesus, and I'm grateful for the time I had with her. But now my mom doesn't have her mom, and death is hard no matter which way you look at it, and she would have been 77 in a few weeks and my card would have been late anyhow. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm tired of grief and I'm ready for Jesus now.