ordinary sacred

– Lots of sleepless nights. Or sleeping so heavy it feels like you haven’t slept at all.

– Marvel at how time both speeds up and slows down- amazed it has been 9 months, or 24 weeks, or 10 years when it feels like yesterday and wonder if and when this season will ever end.

– Touching your loved one a lot. When there’s pain: when they need comfort, when you need comfort, or just because you have to feel that they are still breathing, still with you.

– Become a warrior in the health care system that often is neither about “health” or “care,” but it totally “system.”

– Be grateful that you have health care at all.

– Push away the “what if” fears that crowd in and instead grab for any sliver of hope you can.

– Cry in the shower.

– Wonder if this is what your life will look like forever.

– Wonder what life will be like when it is not defined by illness and needs.

– Clean your house to stay busy one week, and let your house get trashed the next because you are too busy.

– Search the Scriptures for hope.

– Realize you are aren’t breathing at the doctor’s office, and try to remind yourself to use your diaphragm when taking a breath.

– Meet a new medical professional or therapist and try to withhold judgement about whether you like him or her.

– Turn every moment into a quest for recovery, fall into your bed wondering if you did enough to rescue your child from this situation that day.

– Find moments of peace that don’t make sense and attempt to make that moment as fat and big and long as possible.

– Research every possibility, and refuse to be dissuaded from all opportunities.

– Watch for signs of healing, and signs of more illness.

– Wonder what your friends are doing and hope to see them again soon.

– Lay hands on your little one and pray, every moment, every chance, every opportunity.

– Prepare for the worst, celebrate the better, and resist the temptation to despair.

– Keep moving one step in front of the other because as much as you want to quit, you know the only way through this is through.

– Be swept away by the depths of love that wash over you as you gaze at your child, and know that you can do this one more day with the vision of his or her health in mind.

– Sing and then be quiet.

– Pray for those who are struggling with far worse things.

– Realize that when you walk in the dark, it is important to discover what the darkness has to teach you.

– Listen for the voice of God and crave it to find strength for whatever is next.