Laying down my desire to pick up the phone.
“Vasovagal Syncope?”, I try the words out loud that the neurologist just used to explain what had happened to my daughter. “Yep”, the doctor responds, “I am pretty sure that this is the type of episode that your daughter experienced, however I would like to schedule an EEG to rule out anything else.” , the doctor is speaking to me as if everything that my 8 year old daughter has gone through is normal. I want to shake him, to cover my ears and shout “shut up, just shut up!!” “Fainting episode, fairly common, in children when they stand for too long. Lets see her back here next week for the EEG and we will go from there.”, he finishes with his outstretched hand towards me as if a handshake is appropriate for this kind of thing. I nod my head and turn for the receptionists desk numbly grabbing my daughters hand….
As I leave the neologists office holding my daughters hand I am silently praying that the diagnosis of the doctor is accurate. Maybe she did have a “fainting” episode from standing too long. I suppose we will know more in the coming week when she will have an EEG to “rule” out anything more serious.
My first born, she is so strong, so sure of herself and so grown up. Even in the midst of something so scary and unsure, she is stalwart and brave. I glance down at her, tiny little person, full of strength and justice and the pressure in my chest intensifies, “Lord, how do I do this on my own?, How do I be all things to these little girls, when I can’t seem to heal myself”? I rapidly blink my eyes and draw in the deepest breath that I can to calm the quaking deep inside me. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Philippians 4:13 replays in my head. Its a promise that I have been grasping onto lately. I believe that “all things work together for good for those who love God” (Romans 8:28), but believing something and “living” that something out are often in opposition with each other. Our flesh fights against our spirituality. Our flesh desires whatever will make us “feel” good at the moment, whatever will take away our pain, our loneliness, our sadness, our anger……the problem is that most of those “fixes” are temporary and when reality recoils, as it always does, we are left angrier, lonelier, sadder, and more broken than before. You see our flesh wants what fixes our “feelings”, our spirituality fixes the source. My flesh, does not want to be alone, my flesh wants to be with Ash. I remember something my sister said to me just a couple of days ago when I was wallowing over a conversation that I had with Ash. He had told me that he was dating someone in Kona. I pretended to suddenly get busy and needed to hang up. As I laid the receiver down, I collapsed onto the floor and wept, so hurt, so angry, so lonely. I called Amber and lashed out, “how can he say that he loved me and the girls and leave us?” “I can’t believe its over, I can’t believe we are not together, I have never loved anyone like him?”, I am weeping….to this my sister replies, ”Ivy how can you know its over?’, “Maybe its not about you not being with Ash…….Maybe its about you not being with Ash “right now”?”……. As I replay these words in my head I am confronted with the truth that I love Ash, but do I love him the way the Lord loves me? Do I love him according to the “definition” of love…
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not brag, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps not record of wrongs. Love does not delights in evil but rejoices in the truth. It ALWAYS trusts, ALWAYS hopes, ALWAYS perseveres. Love never fails.
Do I want to be with Ash for me or for him? Am I the woman he needs, or am I being self-seeking, wanting only what I want? If the Lord wants the very best for me, “beyond what I can hope for or imagine”, then the Lord wants the very best for Ash too. Am I the best for Ash? If I am honest……..no. I am angry, I am bitter, I do not trust anyone, I am broken, but I do love him, and I am willing to trust in whatever plan the Lord has for my life.
I suppose its time for me to make a phone call. A phone call that will crack me open, will leave me vulnerable, and raw, a phone call to tell Ash just how much I love him. A phone call to let him go.