The Watchman & the Maybe

Remember that time I was going to send out our Christmas email newsletter? And, I was going to show Danny’s fan-tabulous results and talk about our 2014 goals?

Yeah, so that didn’t happen. Obviously.

You know what did happen?

I found the end of my rope. I found the white flag and was ready to wave it wildly in the air.

The holidays were a mixture of very highs, very lows, very nothings and quite brain injury-ed (totally a real word).

The thing is, it’s like a game of Don’t Break the Ice during the last two weeks of December. Every. Year.

Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love having my house decorated. I love getting presents for everyone and baking my families’ favorite things. Christmas Eve service is the best all year. Corbin is out of school, Danny doesn’t have therapy and I usually get some time away from work. My parents come all the way from Arizona to celebrate and help us with the to-dos around the house. We drink coffee. We drink wine. We laugh and play games. We eat yummy food and my mom does the laundry.

Like I said, it’s my favorite.

But, Danny goes into this funk that my comprehension can only assign as brain injury.

Maybe it’s the change in schedule. Maybe it’s the sharing of our space. Maybe it’s the lack of independence and that he still doesn’t have a freaking power wheelchair (losing my mind).

Maybe it’s the brain injury.

And, it’s that stupid maybe that drives me out of my ever loving mind.

Not just because I don’t know and our parents don’t know and our awesome kid doesn’t know.

But, Danny doesn’t know either.

The specialists can tell me the functionality of the frontal lobe of the brain and the extent of his damage there, but no one can tell me how to fix it. And, not so much fix it, but to make it stop.

Make the hurting stop.

We have all hurt enough.

Our beautiful son; oh Lord, help me. Corbin is not immune to our frustrations with the duration of recovery, the grief of what was lost and the struggle to make something beautiful out of the pieces that are left.

I hold myself partly responsible. I’m not 8 years old and I’m not the one in the relationship with a brain injury. I should be able to control my mouth. But, oh, the frustration and the hurt and the desire for it all to go away.

No amount of brain injury education can prepare you or paint a clear picture of what your loved one will be like. Your heart still feels. Your heart still aches for the loss that comes with never ending grief.

I feel like the rudder that steers this ship on the stormy waves trying to get us to safety, to get us to solid ground. And there are days that it is too much for any one person to handle.

It can be too much pressure to bear.

Yet, I know the One who walks on the water, over the stormy waves. I know the One who asks me to let go of my rope and grab onto Hope. I know the One who says to wave my white flag in surrender to His plan for He loves me and is in the business of the impossible.

He paints the masterpiece of our lives. He writes and conducts the orchestra’s symphony. He has our story to tell for His glory.

And, I try to bend to that purpose, bend to that Truth. Yet, I only find myself bowing low in prayer over and over in hopes that maybe this prayer will be the one to yield Him to make our impossible become reality.

I often feel like a fraud of a Christian because I am the one who says, “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief.”

I waiver.

I waiver and look to the Word to steady myself.

I find my voice:

So I wait for the Eternal—my soul awaits rescue—
and I put my hope in His transforming word.
My soul waits for the Lord to break into the world
more than night watchmen expect the break of day,
even more than night watchmen expect the break of day.

Psalm 130: 5-6

The maybes of brain injury and the unknowns of this world can be so cruel. Yet, I will wait for the Lord to break into the natural world to transform us.

I am a watchman looking for a new dawn.

What about you? What do you hope for? Do you waiver in your faith?