Waiting

Susan graduated this week from having a full-time, paid caregiver to having the help of family and friends, a step made possible by her growing strength plus the kindness of others. We're grateful to Ana for her seven months of wonderful care for Susan and will need to overcome her spoiling us with daily laundry service and other housekeeping helps. But what's astonishing is that we can turn to more than a dozen dear ladies who each devote 3½ hours to provide Susan with care and companionship each weekday. We are rich in acts of service on our behalf and are in awe of the love expressed through our church.

While a friend and I were talking this week about the two years since Susan's brain tumor diagnosis, I mentioned her ten or more stable MRIs since 2008 and realized a new perspective – we're waiting for something to happen. We're waiting for the tumor to grow again, because that's what high-grade, malignant tumors do. We're waiting for God to heal her miraculously, because that's what a loving, almighty God does. We're waiting for a medical breakthrough that will move glioblastoma from treatment to a cure, because that's what scientists are dedicated to discover. These are our three options, so we're waiting. Sometimes it's hard to wait.

Sometimes it's harder to wait than others, like when the momentum of a devastating disease like brain cancer can't be stopped in spite of all efforts. As the crisis intensifies, the patient worsens – and then it's over. The battle is finished. I'm thinking of brain tumor buddies we loved: Larry Litherland, Joanne DeBoer, Jeff Nord, and Joanne Bono. Sometimes, momentum closes in on the unbelievable, which becomes the inevitable. That kind of waiting brings anguish. It can crush you because you just can't get a break; nothing works. We've had a break, thank God, so we're still waiting.

None of us likes waiting for anything anyway. Who hasn't yelled "Hurry!" at the microwave? Jell-O takes overnight in the refrigerator to set – but we speed it up by adding ice cubes. Then there's minute rice and minute oatmeal, and we haven't even left the kitchen. Don't get me started about the DMV.

Waiting for anything you're focused on can be torturous, like a child waiting for Christmas, or a trip to Disneyland. It can be especially hard to wait for things you can neither control nor avoid, like the 95-year-old who's outlived her husband and friends and restlessly faces her natural end of life. Such an existence can be made worse when it could have been avoided, like the prisoner whose agony over his long sentence is magnified by the frustration of causing it. But it's especially hard to wait when something as important as the life of a loved one hangs in the balance. It's natural to wonder what will happen, and when. Would it be any easier if we knew what the outcome would be? I don't think so. We'd still have to wait. So, we're waiting.

Then there's God, always attending, always caring, always providing his creative power on our behalf, always making despair optional for us even if our circumstances are not. Those who know they belong to the one who does his best work in graveyards have a wellspring of strength that somehow finds its flow in hopeless situations. Waiting need not be misery when it can be infused with faith, discovery, and the expectation of God's goodness to be revealed. We have his promises to guide us, like a favorite of mine from Isaiah 40:

28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

With help like that, I don't mind waiting.