Disappointment with God

Holly is Daddy's girl.

Holly and Bella enjoying the great outdoors
Joseph has discovered online shopping!

Bella and Joseph, overjoyed to see each other
Aunt Sarah-Jane and Nana playing beauty shop with Holly



These are some picture from our weekend with Bella and my very dear and sweet sis, Sarah-Jane. As you can see, Holly loved having a girl to play with and I think it was a good distraction from all that is going on with Joseph (and I loved having my sister there with me). Allen had a night away with his Dad and brothers to a lakehouse, where they enjoyed boating and fishing. We were all very glad to have him home since Joseph had a rough weekend.

Right now Joseph is in much better spirits and his usual smile is back on his face much more often. I don't know if it was tiredness or just not feeling good, but this weekend he was very grumpy and clingy and just physically not doing well. He didn't leave my side for more than a few seconds at a time, until Daddy came home. Then he was happy again and left for Target with him with no problems leaving me. Go figure! I think his turn in mood resulted from a very good nap on Sunday, just starting to feel better overall, and excitement at Daddy being home.

He is still taking steroids, although we are trying for a third time to wean him off....very slowly.

Joseph is continuing to press on, trying to run and play, but then getting discouraged when he realizes he is way off balance and really needs a hand to hold in order to stay up. While it is encouraging to see he desires to play, it is very painful to not be able to make it all better for him. To watch him watch others play and do the things he used to be able to do with ease is torture.

Someone recently asked me, "Do you feel like you are sitting on a ticking time bomb?" My thought was, "No, it feels like someone is slowly ripping me apart." I hope that isn't too graphic, but I can think of no other way to adequately describe it.

We waffle between hope and despair almost hourly, depending on Joseph's symptoms and mood. I want to hope, hope, hope that Avastin works or that God steps in to save the day miraculously, but then sometimes it just seems impossible.

Aunt Sarah-Jane read to us from our "Read Aloud Bible Stories" book at dinner the other night. The story was about Jesus healing the blind and making lame people walk. Joseph was listening so intently and soaking up the hope that was in those stories. I thought to myself that I often put so much hope in a new drug or the right treatment, when for God it would be so easy to say, "Be healed." Why he does for some people and doesn't for others is a painful mystery.

I admit as I've gotten older I have become more cynical and skeptical than I'd like to admit. It is so hard to see such pain, evil, and disappointment and believe in a good God. A friend of mine gave me the book "Disappointment with God" (by Philip Yancey) about a year before we found out about Joseph's tumor. I found the book so respectful and sensitive to questioning people, and the best part was that he didn't have all the answers. But I loved the way he searched the scriptures and the heart of God to try to make sense of the evil and suffering we experience.

One of the questions in the book was "Why didn't Jesus heal ALL the people he encountered?" I believe he referenced a story where Jesus healed a man at a pool, but didn't heal all the rest. How could he single out that one man and not have compassion on all the men/women? Well, that got me thinking, "Yeah, why not?" Yancey notes that God is always more concerned with our spiritual healing than our physical healing. In the Old Testament he gave many signs and wonders and miracles and it still didn't produce the faith and belief he desired. In the end we will all die, and at that point it won't matter how healthy our bodies are but whether we have responded in faith to the love of Jesus.

I am definitely not doing justice to this wonderful book, and am probably butchering the examples, so I would recommend just reading it.

I am sorry this entry is so "all over the place" but I have to write everything in the small time slots I have where I am not needed....so there you have it. Thanks for listening. Thanks for praying and walking this journey with us.