Today we drive to Kansas City for a full schedule of tests/consultations at Children’s Mercy Hospital. By the end of the day we hope to have some answers. We had the opportunity to go last week and meet with only the cardiologist, but decided to wait until today so we could see the entire team of doctors. I admit that part of the reason I wanted to wait a couple of extra days is because so many people have been praying over the last week that I hope we might see a huge improvement in Penny’s heart.
As we go through this process, we are holding on to hope and to Hope. We have hope that God will hear our prayers and His will is to heal Penny’s heart. But we also have Hope that her heart is already perfect. And that is the Hope we have for all of our children, without which we would live daily with the terror of death upon us.
According to Hebrews 2:15, Jesus partook of flesh and blood – He became a man – so that he might “deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage”. By becoming man and tasting of death for every man, Jesus has atoned for sins. But by rising from the dead, He has removed the sting of the grave so that Life – great and overflowing – has swallowed death. If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable. But we are not miserable.
It’s hard to explain our attitude to someone who does not have this kind of Hope. We fear loss and death as all mortals do, but we do not live in fear of them. From the day I brought home my firstborn I knew that my powers to protect her were limited. I also knew that I would rather see her use up her life on behalf of Christ than to waste it on this world. Every day as a parent I live in the Hope of the Resurrection, lest terror seize my soul.
We have hope today that the tests will show a marked improvement, but that hope is nested in a much larger Hope. If her heart rate is not higher today, or if the blood in her upper chambers is still mixing, or if the doctors look at us with long faces, I know that my Penny is already healed. She is being drawn in the wake of the Resurrected Messiah. She is rejoicing in the Victor’s Parade of the ages. In the Resurrection, she is my perfect Penny.
Nathan Writes 