Whoosh.The machine at my feet kicked on, the cuffs at my ankles compressed and squeezed the air from my lungs as they tightened on my legs. My left big toe itched. My ice water needed refilling, and I could use that pain pill the nurse mentioned an hour ago.
The room was cold and gray even though light spilled from the blinds. A purple African violet sat on the table next to my study Bible and a little green journal that I couldn’t seem to write in.
If I lie perfectly still, I thought, maybe the pain won’t be as bad and I can just fall asleep for a nap without it. I’ve always hated pills.
18 hours earlier, I had just returned to my hospital room from a CT scan. It had taken 24 hospitalized hours of pain medication for me to tolerate lying down flat enough to enter the machine. I knew I had pneumonia in both lungs. The doctors wanted to rule out blood clots.
As soon as they rolled me back to my bed in a wheelchair, an ultrasound unit filled the room – machine, technicians and more. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Since you have the double pulmonary emboli we have to confirm that there are no DVTs in your legs.”
Wait, what?
My doctor hurried into the room as soon as these words came out of the technician’s mouth. Within minutes she was telling me that I should go play the lottery because I was a very lucky woman. Her exact words? “You should have died.”
You don’t quickly forget those words when they’re directed at you.
I wanted to be grateful. I really did. I wanted to feel relief that the baby growing in my uterus for 6 weeks was safe. I wanted to talk about God’s goodness in protecting my life.
But all I felt was silence. I didn’t feel humbled. I felt belittled. Minimized.
My heart cowered like a puppy scolded for making a mess on the rug. An image of God grew in my mind. I pictured him towering over me saying, “I’m the big dog. I’m in control, in case you forgot. How do you like that?”
For weeks I tortured myself with the question, “What is God teaching me with this?” And I let the scariness of the situation drive me to be afraid of God. If I didn’t figure out the lesson in all of this and respond in the right way, I’d really screw this whole thing up. Such a deep trauma had to come with something huge to learn, right?
I responded in such a desperately human way. To have a doctor tell you that you should have died is to tell your body, Your life was completely thrown out of your own hands and you never even knew it.
Four years have passed since that day and pain or stress still instantly sends my nervous system into fight or flight mode, though less extreme now than before.
But today I don’t believe God sent me that trauma or high-risk pregnancy to teach me a lesson. The enemy blindsided me in an attempt to crush my husband, our kids and our church and stamp out the influence our lives would have for God’s kingdom. And I believe that God swooped in and shielded me from what Satan wanted to do.
I began to see what happened as a mercy instead of some kind of lesson from God.
God loves me. Loves me desperately. I was able to journal these words three months after my hospitalization. God switched out that “big dog” image in my head with one of a kind, protective Dad, holding me close with his back between me and the storm.
Once upon a time I thought I had to figure things out to be a good Christian. Not anymore. God is so much more than my teacher. I’m his daughter before I am his student.
I used to think I had to be able to understand and explain the problem of suffering. How can a good God allow horrors in the world? If I could memorize the right arguments, say the right things, I could change people’s minds and make a difference in the world.
Now I know differently.
I don’t know the answers and logic can’t find them for me.
But I know that God doesn’t leave us in our suffering. He entered into our brokenness by allowing his Son to experience all the pain of the world. He is God With Us. That truth dramatically changed how I see myself as a Christ-follower. I’m not alone. I’m not constantly trying to figure out the right thing to do or say. I know now it’s okay to rest in not knowing and actually have peace in the unknown. I’m no less spiritual when I can’t understand.
I’ve lost many things in life. I’ve grown in empathy toward others who grieve. I’ve had to relearn how to trust a God I can’t control. But more than anything, I’ve learned to stop striving and sink into the arms of God. That’s not a lesson – it’s an amazing reality.
He’s got the whole world in his hands and he loves us desperately.
We’re going to be okay.
Even if we don’t know how.