Medication (Pt.2)

I am back in North Georgia. I have avoided writing for the past week...I knew that what is written below would be hard...and painful...and it was worse than I thought. Jesus, as each person reads this, I ask that you will touch the deep, wounded places of their hearts and heal them. Lord, you are familiar with grief and sorrow, and you are not unsympathetic...so please Lord, do what only you can do...In Jesus name!!

"Don't paint my face, I need to see the scars
So I won't forget the back of my tutors arm
Cuz' I jut can't keep it straight
Which kills and which one saves...
But I don't want medication, just give me liberation
Even if it cuts my legs right out from under me
Don't give me medication, I want the real sensation
Even when living feels just like death to me..."
Derek Webb - "Medication"

The waiting now moved to another level. For six months we had been waiting...waiting for a sign of progress...just an inkling of hope that this was going to end in victory. We were waiting for a miracle...for healing...we were waiting for...Him. Even as I write this now, the old Seth Thomas mantle clock ticks loudly...reminding me of the weight of the wait.

Just a week or so earlier I leaned close to my thinning wife and ask her the question that scared me the most: "Honey, have you prayed about this...have you considered whether maybe this is your time to go home?" She smiled and nodded and then replied that she just didn't believe it was her time. Then she said "Promise me something. Promise me that you won't stop fighting."
"Baby, I promise you we will fight until you take your last breath" I assured her, "and if you take your last breath, I will fight for your resurrection, and if that fails, we will know we were wrong and that it was your time."

So there we were...fighting...and waiting. I called everyone we knew..."Pray hard" I pleaded. The minutes of the day seemed eternal. We prayed, standing against fear and unbelief, only to be taunted by the sight of reality...wave after wave of fear...and the questions...the "what ifs".

By mid-afternoon, her breathing became sporadic...she slipped slowly from my grasp...she was conscious, but unable to respond...Her mom & I took turns standing near her, shaking her & telling her to breathe..."Breathe baby, you gotta breathe..."

Writing this is so hard, I don't know if I can finish...Jesus, help me to...to what? To remember what I'll surely never forget? Lord, help me to write...to tell of Nece's unwavering faith and trust in you...Lord Jesus, let your Holy Spirit do what He loves to do...to bring comfort.

We waited...and waited...and prayed...and cried...and prayed...and waited....and then....she lost her eyes...something horrific began to happen to her eyes...it started with a small dark spot, that grew...the fluid seemed to leave her eyes. She had the eyes of a lioness...brown with gold flecks...the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen...now going blind. These were the eyes that had looked at me and said "I Do". Yes, she spoke it with her mouth too, but her eyes said it more emphatically. These eyes of warmth and compassion had looked on me and she saw what others couldn't or wouldn't. She saw the treasure buried in a field inside of me and she said yes, I'll buy that field. She began to dig for that treasure in me...she called it forth. More than any person in my life, she looked at me through the eyes of the Lord. With her lioness eyes she laughed with me, and cried with me...I always said that I wanted our children to have her eyes...and now they were losing their light. It was the most difficult thing I ever watched...those eyes that were full of life just a few short months ago, days ago,..even hours ago...were now gone, replaced by reminders of the Fall...reminders of my powerlessness...reminders of my weakness...reminders of our fragility. Though I didn't know it then, it was also a reminder of...eternity.

Jesus refused the medication that would have made His pain less...I am not Jesus. I wanted to check out...at that very moment I wanted...medication...it hurt too much...but I had none.