My wife had her fifth surgery in 8 months. Calling it a surgery sounds like an exaggeration as it was trans-anal approach and involved a dilation and one small internal incision with a suture, but the pain is real. The incision is in the rectum distal to the dentate line. This means its innervated by the somatic nerves, not visceral. So that means the nerves are very good at telling you there is pain and where it is. It seems to be allowing her bowel to function better, but she’s 10 days into it and the pain is still severe, though hints of some improvement are visible.
This journey has been far from the usual post-colectomy course. Most people get through this with two surgeries, but her body isn’t cooperating quite as hoped. There have been some major road bumps to get past. If I’m honest, it feels like life will never be anywhere close to normal agin. That’s how if feels. The feeling is so strong, I’m not even sure that my brain can compute that the reality could be different.
In the past, I have seen some people’s claims of medical miracles to be easily explainable by the layman’s lack of understanding of the medical situation or the lack of a “100% proven” diagnosis. However, when (I choose to say when, not if) she has returned to a lifestyle that appears similar to normal I will fully endorse a miracle divined by God. Yes, her surgeon was an instrument in God’s hands and the surgeries were important ingredients to God’s work; however, there is much that the body has to do that is outside of surgical intervention to regain proper function. Adaptations that I have not seen, outside of short glimpses.
So, I’m saying it now. We need God’s miracle. I pray for it. I wait for it.
How do I wait?
I’m doing my best to find joy and gratefulness each day. I try to not think about how long things have been going. If i did, I would feel fatigue and it would magnify my struggles with doubt and sadness. I try to not think about how much longer we might wait. For I don’t know; and to put imagined time lines on deliverance is to set one’s self up for disappointment. God hasn’t told me, “On such and such a day your wife will be healed.” So why try to imagine a deadline for God? Instead, i’m trying to say, “God, I trust all my tomorrows to you. I believe your grace will be enough for us each morning that I wake. I believe that your mysterious ways will be on your timeline, not mine. I believe you will not forsake us, but will be faithful.”
Today, I woke. Today I praised God. God has our names written in his book of life. This is our temporary home. He is with us in our joy, in our boredom, in our sufferings. I rejoice that he will not waste our suffering, but is using it to grow us and to give us a testimony that will glorify him. I’m praising him that I have the day off work and that I gave my precious wife some comfort.
DG
Habakkuk 3:17-19
Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no. herd in the stalls - yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like the deer’s feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills.”
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