As I sat in the waiting room at NYU Thursday morning while Ben had a follow up MRI, a million thoughts rushed through my mind. We prayed before he went in and joked about how fast the scans have been since we started having them done in the city. He went back and I settled in to read a new book while I was waiting. It didn’t take long before my mind wandered from the book and I started to watch the clock. The minutes ticked by and as the time ticked by, I let fear start to trickle in. Before long my emotions started to get the best of me. What could be taking so long? As the minutes turned into an hour I started to lose faith in the good results and my prayers started to change.
I looked at my Bible in my hands and the book I was trying to focus on and thought how similar this wait is to my faith. When you are sitting in the waiting room it seems like time drags on forever. It can feel the same way when you are waiting on an answer from the Lord. Time keeps on passing and you keep on waiting. It’s hard for me to keep having faith and believing for a good report the longer it takes for that report to arrive.
Sometimes we lose faith in our Lord the same way that we lose faith in the results. We wait and wait for Him to show Himself and when he doesn’t, we start to give up on Him. We don’t trust Him for the good report and we don’t trust Him to bring about the results we want because they don’t arrive on our terms.
I believe that during those times we are waiting on Him, He is waiting on us. Waiting to see if we will trust Him, waiting to see how long we are willing to wait for Him. Sometimes he is working out a miracle or working on the details of the situation. We only see the waiting room, and we can’t see what is happening on the other side of the door.
The silence in the waiting room Thursday morning was deafening, and in the end the results were not good. It wasn’t because of my fear, or my unwillingness to trust God either. And I haven’t given up my faith in His ability to move. In fact, I am trusting and believing that once again He will use this situation to teach us that He is so much bigger than this. And I will trust Him in the waiting rooms as I continue to pray for direction in wherever this next journey will lead us.
Two months ago, a small spot on Ben’s MRI was questionable. Thursday’s scan confirmed that it was no longer small, and it was no longer questionable. The doctor informed us it was a definite recurrence and that this type of tumor does not do well with chemo and radiation, that he felt a repeat surgery within the next few weeks would be imperative. He wanted to consult with the radiologist before telling us exactly what he recommended we do. His concern was that the last surgery was only 6 months ago and this tumor came back much faster than last time (and is obviously growing much faster). A subsequent conversation with the doctor revealed that it was too soon to do a repeat surgery and the only option they felt they could offer was the one he previously said wouldn’t help Ben. We are praying for direction and guidance in what happens next, that God would lead us to the right doctors and we would have clarity about what decisions to make from here.
Margaret Thatcher said, “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” We intend to win this battle once and for all and we would appreciate your prayers for us as we start down this path again.
Please Pray:
1. That God would lead us to the right doctors and the right treatment.
2. That our children will understand and know that they are loved even when doctors visits take us away from them.
3. That Benjamin will continue to be upbeat and encouraged and that he will be completely healed.
4. That we will not lose faith in the waiting.
Hebrews 11:1- Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
(this video was sent to me by a sweet friend on Thursday who knew exactly what I needed to hear at that time)
**Sidenote for those of you who heard Benjamin had a seizure while we were in NY: He forgot to take his seizure meds with him on our trip, so the second day he suffered a seizure and was rushed to the ER at West Point. This was unrelated to the tumor as it is in a location that should not cause seizures at this time. It was entirely related to the fact he forgot to take his meds for a day. He is sore and still sleeping the seizure off, but we expect him to be fine in a few days!
