The Rainbow After the Storm

Life was clicking on along.  Things seemed to be running pretty smooth.  Then, crisis struck.  In an instant, my world was rocked.  My fear was staring me dead in the face.  And my God never left my side.

In a nutshell, that is what the last couple of weeks have looked like in my life.  A couple of Saturdays ago, I tried to call my mother's cell phone and her dearest friend answered it letting me know my mother was in the ER at the local hospital.  My mother had a kidney stone that was too large to pass and had become infected.  Over the next 24 hours, my sister and I stood by my mother's side in the ICU and had to endure words like low blood pressure, sepsis, life support, and possible death.  My mother desperately needed a procedure where a stint would be put in in order to drain her infected kidney, but her blood pressure was entirely too low for her to undergo anesthesia.  Her body had also become septic.  The longer the sepsis stayed in her body, the higher the risk of her losing her life became.  As the anesthesiologist described it, "We were stuck between a rock and a hard place."  Mom's urologist delivered the difficult news.  After explaining to us what was going on in her body, I asked him, "What does this mean as far as putting her life in jeopardy?".  He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Either way, her life is in jeopardy."

There it was.  Out there for my sister and I to take in.  True life in the rawest of form.  As my sister and I went back into our mother's room in the ICU, Hannah, my sister, asked me to pray.  And I couldn't do it.  I was able to throw some words up.  I don't remember what they were.  And I'm pretty sure they didn't make it past the ceiling.  But in my heart, I didn't know what to say.  I couldn't put an intelligent sentence together.  All I knew was that I needed my mom.  At 61, I knew it was too soon for her life to end.  With that in mind, over and over in my heart, I begged the Lord, "Please, God, not now.  Please, Lord, this is too much.  Keep her alive, Father.  We need her."

And sometimes, friends, that's all it takes.  Just a few words.  And when life is too difficult to even muster up words, Jesus knows our hearts.  Romans 8:26 says, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans."  And that is just what Jesus did for me.  He interceded to His Father, my God, on my mother's behalf.  Bless God.  The Lord heard our cries.  And my mother is now home.  Alive.  Recovering.  Healing.

It was a long road.  I tell you the truth.  After an interesting round of ICU psychosis, the physical effects of the big-gun antibiotics, and hearing loss in her left ear as a result of those big-gun antibiotics, my mother still has a ways to go before she's 100 percent.  But she's alive.  And as a result of this difficult time in our lives, we all love each other a little bit more, love our God a whole lot more, and were able to experience the overwhelming doses of the love He has for us.  That, to me, is what makes Him such a miraculous mix of mystery and beauty.  It is true.  There is so much purpose in crisis, as my favorite Bible teacher Beth Moore would say.  He, indeed, makes the rough places smooth.  He, indeed, walks through fire with us.  And He, indeed, never lets go.  We experienced a thunder storm of epic proportion in our lives, but we now know the beauty and miracles that come with the Rainbow at the end of the storm.  I will be forever grateful for that.

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." -Lamentations 3:22-23