This blog post is sort of a response to a post that my friend and fellow Cholangio wife wrote on her blog a few days ago. Her name is Dorien. She is in her young 40’s and her husband Kyle has Cholangio. They have 4 children. She wrote a nitty gritty down and dirty gutsy post about the feelings that we go through when walking this Cholangio walk. It was awesome and I totally felt everything that she wrote about.
Well, here’s the thing. As I’m reading the post out loud to Travis and my cousin Ali, we found ourselves having a good laugh. Even though the post was tough, we were laughing. In the post she wrote about our family. She said something like… The Roberts have more faith in their pinky fingers than we have in our whole bodies.
Yes, we laughed because it seemed so crazy to us that people on the outside think that of us. I replied to her and said that I was glad that we were their “faith” friends:).
The problem is that I actually don’t know what that means. The word FAITH has plagued me for months now. Faith in what? I hear it all of the time dealing with Travs cancer. People tell us that we have to have faith. People tell us that we need to have faith so that God is able to provide a miracle? We need to have enough faith… Enough belief… We need to say the right words… We need to confess the words that we speak that might show doubt???
Mercy me people it’s a whole lot of pressure. And I love the people who tell me these things. I truly appreciate that they want what is best for us. I’m not mocking or trying to start a debate. Please keep praying for us and loving us. I just want to share my feelings. We don’t believe these things. We don’t believe that God needs us to help Him provide a miracle. We just don’t!
Anyway, I was expressing some frustration on the topic with the ladies in my Bible study just a few weeks ago and something amazing happened. In a 20 minute conversation with the ladies whom I love so much I was given freedom from that word FAITH.
Don’t gasp! Don’t think that I have fallen off the deep end! I have not lost my faith in what I believe is important.
You see, I have faith in God. I have faith in Jesus. Believe me I have faith that the Holy Spirit lives inside of me because I could not go through this without that inner Spirit. I have faith that the Holy Spirit lives inside of Travis. People don’t make the changes that he has made so quickly and so consistently on their own. Did you see the photo above? This is the new Trav reading to his sons class:). This is the kind of stuff that he does all of the time now. Some people may think I sound crazy, but I have faith that a man named Jesus walked this earth and lived a perfect life. I have faith that He performed miracles. (In fact I just finished studying the book of John and the book is all about miracles. Many miracles that He performed despite the lack of faith in the humans that were around Him. If you don’t believe me just look at His Lazarus miracle. He performed the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead even though, Mary who was requesting the miracle did not have faith.) I have faith that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and that He rose from the dead. I have faith in what I believe is important.
In that one conversation with the ladies I realized that I could be free from that word FAITH when it comes to Travis and Cholangio. I’m sorry, it scares me. It’s been over 7 months and when people tell us that if we lack faith we could basically be blocking Gods power it’s scary.
It is scary because we are human. And doubt creeps in all of the time.
We go to horrible doctors appointments where we can’t leave without them telling us that there is no medical chance of beating CC.
It is scary because I have become friends with other young women like myself whose husbands have CC and we are no better than them. They love their husbands just as much as I love mine. Their children need their dads just as much as my kids need Trav.
It is scary because right before we started this journey we lost our friend Pete Adler to a heart attack. In a moment he was gone. He never had the time that we have right now. He didn’t get to say goodbye to his wife and two daughters. He did not have the chance to write letters to his grand babies that he loved beyond words. He was gone in a minute without time to have the faith to save himself. Our family is no better than the Adler family.
So yes, doubt creeps in. I can’t help it. We can’t help it. But as I keep mentioning the ladies. The ladies that I studied John with… They gave me my word. My word that I can cling to. My word that never makes me feel guilty. It’s TRUST! I can Trust that God is going to walk us through this journey no matter where this journey takes us. I can Trust that He loves us and that He wants what is best for us. I can Trust that He will carry me through when I am too tired to walk on my own. I can Trust that He said that in this world there will be struggles (see photos below – those pics are from the week we were waiting to see if Trav had cancer. We are both Googling. Pits in our stomachs. Googling! We had no clue what was about to come) I can Trust that this world is temporary and that He has so much more for us. I can trust that He is a God of miracles. (I am reading 90 minutes in Heaven to Travis which is so good, and it has a modern day miracle in the book. I know they happen.) I can trust that He can heal Travis, or Kyle, or Gordon, or Linh, or Mike(My Cholangio friends Hubbies). He can. I can pray for that and I can trust that my faith in Him is enough. Whatever I have to offer. I trust that it is enough.
I bet that sounds crazy to some, but not to me.
I wrote the verse, “Trust in The Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path”, in my last post. That’s the verse that gets me through.
Outside of prayer that’s all that I can do.
Just Trust!
The days will be hard.
The days will be good.
There will be struggles.
We don’t know where this journey will lead us.
But, now I know that I can have FAITH in what is important and I can TRUST that He will take care of the rest!
Dorien’s blog: http://thisiswhativegotfortoday.blogspot.com
The post that I referenced is called Decisions Decisions