Give it more time
My impatience got the better of me this week. My feelings of utter helplessness and lack of control got the better of me, too. I don’t recall anyone telling me how often as a parent I would wonder if I was doing the right thing. So far (I think) my gut instincts have been correct, at least when it comes to the big things. I texted my mother and said, “How come you never told me I would never know what the best thing to do is?” and she replied, “I never wanted to admit defeat!” When I sent her a GIF of a white flag waving in surrender, she responded, “Sometimes you just have to hug them and hope for the best. I waved that flag a lot!” Honestly, that made me feel a lot better, because my mom was always my go-to person growing up. She always seemed to know what to do, how to fix the boo-boos, how to stop the tears, how to mend the fences.
I stood in my kitchen on Wednesday morning at my wits end, put my elbows on the countertop and prayed to the Lord to give me wisdom, to stop my child’s discomfort and heal his skinny little eleven-year-old frame. Then I called the doctor’s office and talked to a nurse. I explained how hard mornings have been, how that is when his pain is the most pronounced, how I can hardly get him to eat breakfast, much less make the 30-minute car ride to school. I told her that I just didn’t know what else to do for him, I didn’t feel like the medication was helping us, and I was not (am not) cut out to be a homeschool mom. Overseeing make-up work might just end with him in military school! A few minutes later she returned my call with instructions from the doctor to bring him into the hospital, and they would prepare to do surgery to remove his kidney stone. Worried, but also relieved, I broke the news to my boy who broke down in tears, “please, mom, please give me a few more days, just a little more time, please.”
After a few hours that included some bloodwork, an ultrasound, and an x-ray, the doctor came in to see us. He had a very calm bedside manner and spent significant time explaining the pros and cons of surgery to us, all the while his hand resting on my son’s ankle as he looked into his eyes and included him in the conversation. He pulled up the scans from two weeks ago and the scans from that day to compare and revealed to us that the stone is making excellent progress through the urinary tract! I could hardly believe it. In about 12 days, the stone had traveled 12 cm, with only about 5 more to go. There’s just one more spot that might be significantly painful for him before he passes it. When he said, “it’s really up to you all, if he can handle the discomfort a little longer or you are ready to throw in the towel, then we can try to remove it.” My sweet child looked over at me with his big brown eyes, filled with crocodile tears, pleading to go home. I looked to the doctor and said, “Your professional opinion, what would you do?” He waited a few beats, building the suspense, then said, “I’d give it more time.”
And there it was. God’s answer to my kitchen prayer. The doctor apologized for the directive to drive into Roanoke and go through the tests, but I told him I was grateful. I was thankful that he took my concerns seriously and that we were able to get confirmation that we are in fact doing all the right things, that there is an end in sight. God is always at work. It just takes time.
2 Peter 3:8: "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day".
Habakkuk 2:3: "For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay".
Psalm 31:15: "My times are in your hands".