The Answer

Six days ago I was in an ambulance with Olivia being transported to Cook Children’s. A flawed clonidine patch that she had been wearing released too much medicine at once and caused enough chaos to land us in the hospital for a few days. Normally, I would text or call family and friends to let them know, but this time I didn’t. I don’t think my mind wanted to come to terms with another hospital visit so soon after the 6-week one we endured a few months ago.

The ride from Abilene to Fort Worth was a long one, and I spent most of it reading articles about Hurricane Harvey, which was about to make landfall. One story highlighted 10 babies that were transferred from a NICU in Corpus Christi. Cook Children’s Teddy Bear Transport–using planes and ambulances like the one carrying Olivia and me–brought the infants to Fort Worth before the storm hit the Texas coast.

I looked at my own child laid out on a stretcher, and I hurt for the parents of those 10 little ones–families experiencing a storm within a storm.

As the week progressed and the flood waters rose, I teared up at the sight of the elderly wading in water waist deep, of a little girl on a ventilator waiting for rescue, and children seeking refuge on roofs.

In times like that there are more questions than answers:

Should they stay or flee? And if they leave, where will they go?

When will the rain stop and the waters recede?

As of late, my life has been filled with questions too:

Should I call the doctor … again … or wait and see?

Is it time for the medicine I know will put her to sleep, or can we ride this one out?

How much more can I stand to watch her suffer?

They don’t stop there but come tumbling through my mind faster than I can think.

Am I doing enough? … Should I quit my job? … Am I asking too much of the people I love?

So many questions. So few answers. Especially for me … that girl. The one who always wants to know. Why the sky is blue. What the future holds.

We are alive and safe and dry in a home that is secure, and I really shouldn’t struggle so. Yet, I have. This week has just been hard.

It’s the crying that feels endless and that helpless feeling and the sleepless nights.

But really it’s all those questions I don’t have answers for.

There among unanswered questions, hidden at times beneath the rubble of stress and sorrow, a decision remains:

Will I be be swept away by the tide of all I don’t know–caught in a torrent of things I can’t understand? OR, can I choose to settle my heart on the One who is the Answer to every question, the peace in any storm?

Jesus is the Answer when there are no answers.

He is hope where hope doesn’t exist–an anchor that holds, though the winds may rage.

It doesn’t matter that nothing makes sense. He is truth.

My helplessness is not a problem for Him. He is God.

The fact that Jesus is the Answer is enough.

He is enough–this God whose perfect love casts out fear. Who chose to leave heaven, joining our suffering so that all could be made right.

As a mother, I am so fallible. So imperfect. Yet, as much as it hurts me to watch Olivia suffer, I would never leave her alone in that pain.

Am I better than my Father? No. I’m certain it rips at His heart, but still he stays with us in the places where suffering runs deep. He would never leave us alone in that pain.

And unlike me, our God has answers. Real ones. Life altering, soul strengthening answers. He IS the Answer, and He sees a middle filled with peace and joy and an end that is good.

So, I will reframe my questions and look to Jesus as the Answer. It’s less about whether I stay or flee than where I place my trust. Because what I do–while important–is driven (or derailed) by the how. And the question of when is nothing compared to that of who. All of the whats, whens, and whys pale in the face of who Jesus is and how I respond to Him.

Because Jesus is the only Answer that matters.

“Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.”–Romans 7:25a (NLT)