Excerpt from…
Chapter 10 – Light Breaks thru the Darkness
We sat on Connie’s bed knowing that there were no matches. I rubbed her back. We trembled as we hugged and tears came to our eyes. No remission, no transplant, no matches with family, no donor. Without a word spoken, we knew time was short for us.
Remarkably, as is often the case, a light broke thru the darkness. It’s like sitting in a blackened room and someone lights a match. No amount of darkness can extinguish the light that comes from that one little match. So it was with us. The very same day, as we considered the jagged road ahead and the possibility of meeting each other again in eternity, incredible news came walking thru our door from our “sit-down” doctor.
We have "GOOD NEWS" to report.
Today, at 5:00 pm we heard about an amazing donor in the National Registry. He matches with Connie 10 for 10! He’s essentially READY TO GO!!! It was confirmed that he is healthy and that he is going to be ready to go when we need him.
What has to happen now is that Connie will need yet another round of chemo (with a different drug). We, once again, will seek remission but, if it doesn't happen we will still proceed to transplant (sometime in mid-January we think). That's her best chance. This last round of chemo will be tough. Connie can handle this! She is strong!
There is no way to express the feeling deep inside you when you know that God has moved His hand for you. I was up late. It would be our last day in the hospital for a while. We both were emotionally spent and physically exhausted. It had been a very confusing and weird day. I had just enough energy to do one more late night update:
10:30 p.m. - This might be tough to hear tonight and I’m warning you ahead of time that I’m writing straight from my heart. It’s probably going to be raw, emotional and I write with trepidation and dry tear ducts.
One thing I’ve learned thru this experience however, it that God never “sugarcoats” the lessons He’s teaching you. Sometimes we don’t listen and He has to use a two-by-four to crack you over the head before you will learn it…but, once you realize one of God’s truths…it is there forever! I used to “hope” for things. I hoped the Chiefs will win the Super bowl. I hoped that we could take a nice vacation. I hoped that I could do enough mortgages to pay the bills. I hoped that I had planned well enough to retire. I hoped for many things. It wasn’t until today that I realized what the Biblical meaning of the word “hope” really was.
My best buddy Bob gave me this verse tonight: Romans 5:2-5. I’ve read this verse a hundred times. It never “stuck out” to me like it did tonight. Here’s what the verse says:
“We exult in hope of the Glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance, proven character, and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
Today, for a short time…I lost hope.
As you all know, we are in day 37 of our ordeal and I’ve not been shy telling you all what we’ve been going thru. Today, I’m sorry to say…I lost it. After hearing the news that leukemia cells were still present …the pit of despair reached up and pulled me in. Notwithstanding the scary things being said to us, the feelings of emotion rushed over me in waves of uncontrollable tears.
We hugged, we cried, we were pissed. We cried again, said “I love you” a hundred times and hugged again. Words were not deep enough to express what we were feeling. We sat on the bed and cussed. No one was in the room, but room # 5432 became a place where we had received the “final straw” in my mind for bad news. We couldn’t take anymore.
As I considered the hundreds (and perhaps thousands) of people that were praying for us this day…I could not fathom that God did not hear our prayers. ALL OF THEM! I envisioned an upside down tornado of prayers swirling up to the heavens heading straight to God’s ears. You all have been so faithful, you all got on your knees, you all have been lifting this girl up for this one moment where we expected to see God’s hand….It didn’t come….We waited…we trusted…we didn’t lose faith…but …good news didn’t come.
One thing I’ve learned in my 30 plus years of following the Lord is that God doesn’t always answer prayers the way you think He will. Sometimes the answers are hidden or delayed for our own good. When we think He’s not answering, He’s working miracles all around the situation only according to His plan. Not yours.
It is by no accident that, at the very moment we needed to see a miracle, our transplant coordinator got word of the “confirmation”. In a span of six hours, God had moved his hand. He had caused “all things to work for the good, for those that love Him…” (Rom 8:28)