And I'm helpless to it all.
I've told you about Kelly before. I met her high above the Texas skyline, and we caught the last glimpse of the sunset together. She was beautiful- wore a pretty hat to cover her head, hairless from what chemo stole from her. She smiled through the pain, her body attached by tubes and wires to a tree of life- or death?- with fluids and toxic materials pumping through her. Her quiet southern voice somehow illuminated the room, kept the shadows at bay. Sort of made the sun shine, even though it had slipped below the horizon. She told us of her two lovely girls back home, how God was still working, how she still prayed for the miracle. I gave her a hug before we left, told her we would be praying for her. Told her to keep trusting.
The elevator door closed, and it was the last I saw of her. Last time I ever will have seen her. Cancer claimed her body but five short months later.
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A father in our community discovered cancer was taking over his lungs soon after Ryan's tumors were removed from his. We've been praying, trusting, knowing that God is still working. I never knew this man well, but from the times I did spend with him I knew him to be a man of worship. Had a smile that somehow made you feel like you belonged. Quiet, but when he spoke they were words of life. Like David, he worshiped the Father will all of his might, with ever fiber of his being. Today I got the phone call everyone dreads, the one you pray against. The one you hope you never have to answer. The phone call that, as a cancer family, you pray you never have to make.
It'll only be a few hours now.
I hang up. Dad calls- I answer, and I weep. I grieve. I cry for the children, whose father is their world. I cry for the wife, so strong yet how can frail shoulders hold up the load of everything and watch as the love of her life suffers? I cry for the friends, the extended family, the community who is loosing a mighty warrior of Elohim.
My soul longs to pour forth prayers but no sound comes from my throat. Dad prays for me instead.
And Heaven weeps.
The rain pours from the skies as my tears fall, as our prayers rise upward. Not long after, another phone call follows.
It is finished. No more pain except the pain that is in our hearts, no more sorrow except for the tears we weep. No more questions, except for the ones we may shout in our frustration and grief.
Finished.
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{please, be praying for this family and our community tonight and in the days/weeks/months to follow. thank you, from the bottom of our hurting hearts.}
