Remembering and rejoicing

     Two years ago this weekend, on the Friday before school started, around 5:00 in the afternoon, we got the phone call that changed everything.  The terrible news that Tessa, Grace, Madeleine, and Janie had been in a very serious car accident.
     It was a day much like today--very hot and humid--with all the frenzy associated with the start-up of school, activities, and fall.  All that busyness had crowded out any kind of thoughts about the ultimate issues of life and death.   About what really mattered to us.
     In fact, one moment forever remains frozen in my memory: Janie rushing out the door that morning to get a ride to the lake, shouting, "Bye, Mom!  I'm late!  And me, preoccupied on the telephone, simply waving goodbye and failing to say those words that I always said to my children when they were leaving the house, "I love you!  Salt and light make a difference!"  Later that night, while sitting in the ICU waiting room, and in those long days afterwards, I sadly pondered that seemingly insignificant moment...when I had missed the opportunity--perhaps for the last time--to tell my daughter I loved her.  How could I have failed to do and say that which was most important?  That was my greatest regret in those hard days and weeks.
     If you knew that this day, this hour would be your last chance to share with someone how much you love them, to give them a hug or an encouraging word, wouldn't you always pause to take the time to say it and show it...rather than busily remaining focused on a to-do list?  Oh how often we mistakenly choose the temporarily urgent over the eternally important!

     Our lives were rocked to the very core, as we were confronted with whether Janie would survive the night...and if she did, would she ever wake up or walk or talk or attend school or sing or even know us or anybody else?   Suddenly carpools, school supplies, broken washing machines, and multiple undone chores didn't matter a hill of beans.  How on earth could we have been so worried and frustrated about them before?
     No, we suddenly and shockingly had the gift of clarity--of who and what truly mattered.

       It was a long two weeks of waiting.  Waiting and praying her lungs would heal.  Waiting and praying her brain would heal.  Waiting and praying God would wake her up and enable her to regain consciousness.  Waiting and praying that in His mercy and grace, God would give us back our girl.

(One of many memorable moments--Russ and Creecy helping get down Janie's high fever--with wet towels and a bedpan "fan."  God gave the gift of laughter even in the ICU.)
      I won't go into all of it again, but God taught us so much in those days and weeks.  We had learned and now knew by experience, rather than just theoretically, that our God is forever faithful, gracious, and loving--even in the hardest, darkest of places.  And we discovered that when you hit rock bottom...He is deeper and greater still.  And though it was a painful, hard-won lesson, we learned that our Lord is sovereign; and if He chose to take Janie home to Himself or leave her in a wheelchair or hospital bed for the rest of her life, then our God would somehow, someway supply us all with the grace we'd need for each day, everyday.
      God uses pain, uncertainty, and waiting in our lives in such powerful, shaping ways, doesn't He?  C.S. Lewis says that "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pain.  It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."  It's so true.  Some things can only be learned in the dark.
      "I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name." (Isa.45:3)  We would not trade for anything the treasures of darkness that the Lord gave us in those long days:  Drawing us closer to Him.  Teaching us dependence upon Him.  Bringing His Word alive to us as never before--His words seemingly breathed straight from His lips...warm, healing, strengthening.  Schooling us in the truly important (versus "urgent") need of choosing gratitude---and the incomparable blessings of peace and joy that such thankfulness brings.  Gratitude even for the smallest of gifts (our favorite nurse at night; the Starbucks in the hospital; dear family and friends; laughter--even in the ICU; hot tea; prayer; hymns; gifted doctors; home; sweet memories; the Word...)
     And so today, we simply remember and rejoice over God's amazing grace and forever faithfulness.  From the helicopter that flew Janie to Greenville to the ambulance that carried her to Chapel Hill--

     For the gloriously happy days after God, in His sovereign timing, finally said, "Now, I will return her back to you"--

 And that moment seared in our hearts when she and Tessa saw each other for the first time--

 To the happy Starbucks run in the lobby of the hospital--

 To that first rainy--but quietly joyful--football game a little over a month after the accident (who would have thought, or even dreamed, they would be able to go?  No one...except God)--

   To those painful but hilarious rehab walks on the greenway and on the Root track--complete with wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, and belts (Hilary is right--it took a village)--

     To an unforgettable reunion that Christmas with Johnny--the EMT who saved their lives at the scene of the accident--

      From grace to grace to grace.  What can we say but thank You, Father.
      I don't know what kind of hard, painful struggles you might be enduring this day, but this I do know--your God is able.
     Able to carry you through.  Able to reveal to you treasures in the darkness.  Able to bring ultimate good even out of the most difficult of circumstances.  Able to "do far more abundantly than all that [you] ask or think, according to the power at work within [you]." (Eph.3:20)
      If He can give sight to the blind...cause the lame to walk...walk on water...calm the fiercest storm with a word...forgive the vilest sinner with His blood...feed the hungry masses with a lad's snack...and raise the dead to new life...well, then, I think...no, I know that He can fully and faithfully carry you too. Not somehow, but triumphantly.
     "I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation.  But take heart; I have overcome the world."(John 16:33)
     To God be the glory.