Hope

I find myself saying 'we're hoping' a whole lot lately. 

We're hoping Abby tolerates feeds.

We're hoping she can go home.

We're hoping she gets better. 

We're hoping this works.

We're hoping we made the right choice.

We're hoping she goes home Friday and we're definitely hoping she stays relatively healthy. 

Today I found myself questioning all that hoping going on.  The desire of my heart is to take my daughter home.  My hope is honestly that she would survive this. 

There are so many unknowns as we travel down the road of the life that is before us.  The reality is that I could lose one of my girls.  Abby is of course in the most precarious position at the moment.  And yet she's stable.  I have this desperate need to somehow try to protect myself from the horrible finality of an end. I'm afraid of being blindsided. Somewhere in my mind I feel like if I could think of it sometimes; try to wrap my head around what life would be like without her, that maybe it wouldn't be so hard if it actually happened.  Of course, my heart holds firmly to the belief that I will never have to know that moment.   

Abby's new life line

There are days when I just hate that I live a life where those questions come to the front of my mind. 

Other days I am grateful to know how fragile it all is.  I'm thankful, not for the thoughts of losing my daughter, but for the understanding this life has opened for me. 
Today as I've questioned our decisions, and "hoped" we are doing the right thing for Abby, I've had this terrifying feeling that she's hanging off a cliff. 

I feel like I have a firm grip on her, but as she hangs I can't help but see how far the ground is from where we are--it is a long way down.  So my Mama hands are holding on to the situation as tightly as possible. My Mama heart that just won't let go.  My fear of breaking keeps me from feeling at peace with moving from the place we are in. 

The pressing I feel on that heart today is God reminding me that it is not me who holds her up.  My eyes see the ground, His grace tells me that He's got us both.  My fear binding me, my faith longing to let go.  What if I completely trusted Him and let go?  What if I trusted the choices we've made and the answers I feel like God confirmed in me?  What if I stopped trying to figure it all out for a few minutes?  Would I see my little girl fly instead of fall?

That's what faith is. Believing God for the fall as well as the flight.

Radical faith is probably more than just letting go, it's jumping with her.  It's knowing that even if we fall there are always going to be hands to catch us.  Where we are when we stop is where we're supposed to be. 

As parents, most of us have experienced fear where our children are concerned.  High fevers, prolonged illness, that quick prayer for nothing to be wrong, even when we don't think anything is wrong.  That "hope" that all is well.  Nothings wrong with that, but ultimately our hope has to be in knowing that Jesus Christ is the only hope.  His promises never fail and the future I have in Him is something to cling to on firm ground or during the fall. 

We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.  Psalm 33:20-21 (NIV)