Locked gates.
Aubrey carried Cooper to the playground last night on her back. She gently dropped him down and he quickly ran up ahead to the gate.
He tried and tried to open it but his two year old fingers just couldn’t get the snap free.
He started to whine at his numerous failed attempts.
Soon, Aubrey reached the gate too. She wasn’t in a hurry because she knew there was plenty of time to play once they got there. Her much wiser and stronger fingers quickly unlatch the snap and off they both went inside.
Sometimes the gate is closed because we aren’t ready for what lies on the other side.
What would happen if Cooper went into that playground without anyone to watch him? He could easily fall and tragically hurt himself on any number of the pieces of equipment within that fence.
Locked gates and shut doors.
While frustrating to those of us without the ability to open them, they serve a purpose.
They protect us.
They keep us from walking into something we can’t handle alone.
So we wait. We wait until the wiser One gives us the green light and unlocks the door for us.
Today our gate remains locked.
Brady’s B cells still don’t show recovery.
His team has decided that with him now having the scheduled five doses of the two chemotherapies, he will go with no chemo.
This is welcomed news for all of us. This last round of chemo hit him extremely hard and we weren’t expecting it. Plus, his liver is struggling. The levels have been elevated for a few weeks now and it has made Chris and I pretty uncomfortable.
Just today we heard of a fellow warrior who lost his battle. Not from his cancer. Not from his bone marrow transplant. Not from his CART therapy. But from his liver failing after all of it.
So now delay in Brady’s treatment gives us a chance to detox and clear his liver as best as we can.
We have the opportunity to look at this closed gate before us and imagine that something much greater lies beyond it.
Next week Brady will get more labs to check all his counts again. If they haven’t moved, we will recheck the following week. If still nothing, then they will schedule a bone marrow biopsy.
And so there is a piece of my heart. Frustrated at this closed gate but holding my face close to the fence. With my eyes peering through the openings at what lies ahead.
Could it be?
Could it even be possible?
What if?
What if this closed gate was an opportunity to do an unscheduled biopsy?
What if that biopsy showed his cancer had been cleared?
What if what I have prayed for every night by his bedside has come true?
What if Jesus’s blood has washed over Brady’s cells taking each of the dark cells and transforming them to light?
To healthy, cancer-free cells?
Could it be?
So tonight I stand patiently at the locked gate. Unsure of what is ahead, but knowing that God will be here any minute to help us unlock what our clumsy fingers are unable to do.
Or.
Maybe there is an entirely different gate He has opened waiting somewhere else. A different entrance He needs us to trust him on.
So here is to making my inner two year old inpatient self wait patiently for the playground I’m desperate to get to.
Shields up.
Swords out.
In the waiting,
Kristin
“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
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