Sitting At Hopkins Waiting for Brady's MRI

Hi Friends:

I'm sitting at the MRI lab at Hopkins waiting for Brady to get called back. We showed up at 10 AM just as they asked us to... we were even early. If you look at the time of this post you will see that we're still waiting at a little past 11!! Of course, this is typical for doctors... Our time means nothing to them, but let us be a few minutes late and they would probably cancel our appointment. Not much consideration for the fact that he was here last week... and both he and his parents are on edge.

The anestheseologist just came out to see us, so perhaps we are making progress. He's supposed to be "put under" and then they put the IV in, and by the time he wakes up, he is in recovery. We certainly pray it works out this way.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers the next couple hours. I hope we'll have a result later today... and prayerfully things will be okay.

Thanks,
ALAN

If at Fist You Don't Succeed... Try, Try Again

Unfortunately, Brady's MRI was unsuccessful yesterday. The IV sedation did not manage to put him asleep enough and he woke up during the procedure—I guess he was too "stubborn" to give in to sleep. (I have no idea where he gets that "stubborn streak" from? ☺) Naturally when he woke up inside the machine he was terrified with all the noise, confined space, etc. (That which we hoped and prayed would NOT happen, happened. SIGH... Seems to be happening all too often lately.) We tried to settle him down and do it again, but to no avail. The minute we moved him, he knew what was up, and woke up and started crying.

So the upshot is that he'll have to go back next Thursday (4/2) and have the whole damn thing done again, and this time they will use general anesthesia. The good news is that he won't wake up during or remember the process; the bad news is the trauma we will face getting him in this time since he will likely know where he is going this time, etc., and be scared going in as he will probably remember what happened yesterday.

On a lighter note, the poor little guy looked like a drunken sailor walking around the house last night as he was coming off the medicine. At one point he pointed to the floor and said, "Stop moving!" We were concerned because we did not want him to hurt himself but you could not help but laugh at him, and frankly he was laughing at himself. (Frankly, we needed to laugh so it was good.)

I confess I was frankly pissed at not getting this done yesterday—I took an afternoon off work and will have to take another, but that's really the least of it. The worst part is that Brady went through all that trauma only to not get the results AND he has to go through the whole thing again! We end up feeling: "Can ONE thing in our life be uncomplicated?!" (You kind of wish we had just done general anesthesia to begin with but they like to try IV sedation if they the patient "qualifies", and apparently Brady did. Hooray for us! )

Not only that, but now we have to wait another week to get results of this MRI, and we have already been waiting over two months since we first found out about the "spot" on his brain. We hope and pray the "spot" is benign as the physicians believe, but we just want to know for sure at this point. At least once we finally get the test done we should know the results pretty quickly since our pediatrician and neurologist can access them about an hour after the MRI is done on the Hopkins website.

So keep us in your thoughts and prayers. You can imagine that we are on edge and frustrated at the delays. Pray that we hang in there and "keep perspective." You go down to Hopkins and see some children in far worse shape than ours. Some will never leave that hospital...

Of course we know something about that reality too, having lived it last spring with Hope. Given that context, it's hard for us not to be anxious as we return to Hopkins yet again and face another health concern with our children. Needless to say, every time we set foot in that hospital it brings back bad memories, and it seems like we've had to go there pretty often recently. And we have to go back again next week...

Oh well, what can you do... At the end of the day all you can do is TRUST God, "no matter how hard it may be"... but I can tell you that right now it's VERY hard for me. I feel like every time I trust I get burned... It's like I'm having to rebuild what it means to TRUST God from the ground up. TRUST certainly doesn't mean that everything I desire or pray for is going to happen; in fact, far from it. I probably always knew that intellectually, but now as we live through this season of personal hardship and suffering, I am experiencing it firsthand.

On the other hand, on a "deeper level" I know I do TRUST the promises of God. I'm convinced that this "deeper level" of TRUST is what has kept me going the past year or so as we have endured such difficult life circumstances. It has to sustain me until such time as the "surface level" of TRUST is rebuilt. Deep down, what other choice do I have right now but to TRUST? There's really nothing I can do about this situation on my own—it's out of my control. Even though it's totally frustrating to feel powerless to do anything, we just have to be patient and hope for the best and not give into fear of the worst.

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Brady's MRI Taking Place Today

Just a quick upate. They moved Brady's MRI to today (Wednesday) at 2 PM due to confusion over the type of anesthesia they are using—i.e., they only do IV-sedation on Wednesday so we had to change the appointment to today. The little guy has a hearing/speech evaluation this morning as well, so it is a busy day for him—and he can't eat anything besides jello and juice until after the MRI is over. We figured the exam this morning would take his attention off not eating for a while, so we kept both on the schedule. Plus, we get both things done today, which is somewhat convenient.

So please keep us in your thoughts and, if so-inclined, prayers today.

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Trust: No Matter How Hard It Might Be...

Hello Friends:

It's been quite a while since I posted to my blog but I wanted to send a note out to ask for special prayers this week for Brady and for his parents... 

Our son Brady has to have an MRI at Hopkins on Thursday.  A couple months back he had a febrile seizure (he has had several of episodes over the past two years) and when we took him down to Hopkins they did a CT-scan and found what they described as a "small cyst" on his brain—previous CT scans had not detected this.  We then took him to see a pediatric neurologist at Hopkins. The neurologist believes that whatever it is, it is benign based on all she can deduce from examining him, etc.—i.e., he seems like a normal 3-year old. However, the radiologist recommended that we do the MRI to confirm because he could not say conclusively that it was not a "mass"—i.e., solid as opposed to a watery "cyst".  They want to be sure of exactly what it is we are dealing with and the MRI is the best tool available to do that. 

As you can imagine this is challenging for us.  First of all, Brady will have to be sedated for the procedure, which is not fun for anyone, much less a 3-year old.  Second, when you hear something like this, it is quite scary as a parent...  If you have kids I'm sure you relate: "My child has a 'something' on his brain!?  That doesn't sound good..."  Your mind inevitably runs in a thousand different directions... and you conjure up all kinds of horrible scenarios that you pray aren't true.  You wonder if this is why he is having seizures?  Or why his growth and speech seem somewhat delayed?  And so on...

It is especially hard for us to not imagine the worst right now after all we went through with the girls last year.  We trusted doctors before... and they were flat-out wrong.  They kept saying, "Everything was fine," week after week, and of course everything was anything but fine.  For all of their great technology, they 'missed' something pretty big!  We trusted the doctors and it may well have cost Hope her life.  It reminds us that sometimes the so-called "experts" don't know everything... and that there is a "higher authority" in God.  

I believe in the power of that "higher authority" but honestly my problem right now (and I suspect Laurie might say something similar but I can't speak for her) is that I don't know how well I trust God's motives right now.  I trusted God with the health of our girls last spring and, though my brain knows it doesn't work this way, my heart feels hurt and disappointed with God for letting us down in a big way.  I prayed and prayed that things would go well and of course the prayers didn't get answered the way we wanted. I still struggle to comprehend what happened and why. (Knowing all the while that the "answers" I want may never come.) 

Ironically I frequently sing a song called Trust (by Phil Lazo) to myself and to my kids at night.  I did this long before Hope and Becca were born.  (We actually had Phil sing at our wedding and Brady's baptism.)  But now more than ever the words ring true for me.  Now more than ever, I need to remind myself of how I do need to trust God, "no matter how hard it might be".  When Laurie and I had to "choose between our child and our God" last spring, we had to trust that we were doing the right thing even though it was an agonizing choice to make.  We realized that this earthly life held little "hope" for our darling Hope and made the decision to release our daughter "into the arms of Jesus, the only savior that [we] know!"  (It is the hardest decision we ever had to make, and I hope and pray none of you have to make that kind of choice.)  In the weeks and months that have followed, I've had to try pick up the pieces of my shattered "hopes and dreams" for my daughter and learn to trust God  during these days when I feel like "I'm blind and can't see" God at all, or when it seems like my whole world has collapsed and "fear grips my days."  

It's hard to trust, especially after all I have lived through recently!  I feel so out of control at times and no matter how I try, I just don't like that feeling; it makes me very anxious at times.  I am a Meyers–Brigg "ISTJ" personality type who likes a neat, orderly, predictable existence and that is so not my life these days.  (Perhaps it never really was my life nor is it meant to be as a follower of Christ?  But somehow that doesn't bring me much comfort right now.)  I wonder if I'll ever be more comfortable living with all the ambiguity that is such a part of daily life on this third rock from the Sun?!

So perhaps now you understand why this procedure on Thursday is especially worrisome for us right now. When you've lived through what we've been through the past year or two,  you struggle to trust.  We tend to start from a position of fearing the worst rather than hoping for the best. I suspect it would be hard for any parents whose son had to have an MRI on their brain, but it is especially hard for us. 

Of course, at the end of the day, whether it be this MRI for my son or many other things we encounter in daily life, what other choice is there but to trust?  So many times in life, the outcome is just out of our control and the only thing left is our faith, hope, and ultimately our TRUST in God.  We certainly pray with all our being that Brady is okay and we would ask you all to join us in praying this week.  We need our friends to surround us right now and cover us with prayer. We thank you very much for your support.

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The Rainbow Followed Me Home

One night recently, I was out doing an errand and as I was driving home getting ready to get on Route 695 (the Baltimore Beltway) I looked up and saw a rainbow. I was reminded of the passage from the book of Genesis where God makes a covenant with Noah and promises him that he would never again flood the earth and destroy all life—Genesis 9:12-16. It was comforting to think that maybe God was somehow sending a message to me through the rainbows I saw as he did Noah. The loss of our 2-day old daughter Hope and my mom's recent illness has been very difficult on our family and Laurie and I certainly hope that better days are ahead—we could certainly use a rainbow or two right now.

As I drove around the beltway that evening, I continued to get different views of the rainbow. Sometimes I had to twist my head around to find the rainbow but it was still there—almost as if it was following me home. Sometimes I could see the rainbow across the whole sky, other times parts of the rainbow would be obscured by dark clouds and I saw just a small part of the arc of color but it seemed to move with me as I drove. Of course the reality is the rainbow never really moved… I did. The rainbow remained relatively stationary in the sky but my perspective continued to change because the clouds above me kept moving and I was also moving.

My experience with the rainbow the other day seemed like a fitting metaphor for how my relationship with God has felt these past few months. In the midst of the maelstrom that has been our life these past few months it is fair to say that God as at times felt elusive and hard to see. The roiling clouds of life swirl over my head and obscure my view of God at times. In the aftermath of losing our daughter, and now my mom's illness, I am unable to see clearly where God is. I sometimes feel like a blind man stumbling around in the darkness searching for answers to life's hardest questions. I cry out: Why God?! And I get no answer. I've had try and "twist my head around" trying find at least a glimpse of God's presence during these dark days.

But I also have to remember to ask myself: Who moved here? That is to say, did God move or did I? The reality is that God has not moved… I have. I have been forever changed by what he have lived through recently and it inevitably affects how I relate to God—it changes my perspective and perhaps alters my view of God if you will. I have to learn to relate to God from my new viewpoint and adjust to my new reality—a reality that must forever include the tragedy of losing a daughter and the reality of a seriously mentally ill mother.

There do appear to be little rays of sunshine peaking through the gloom and clouds that have permeated our life recently. And of course, sun peaking through a thick deck of clouds and raindrops is precisely the conditions that give rise to rainbows—chances to catch a glimpse of God's presence breaking through the clouds. And as time goes by, I think I start to see more of these glimpses... but it definitely takes time and patience.

Last week, we got some good news about Brady. He visited the neurologist for a follow-up on the seizures that he has had (one last August, and three more in May). There was some concern that his EEG was "irregular", but we were relieved to have the doctor tell us that she thinks the seizures are febrile seizures and she doesn't think any medication is needed at this time. She said that the EEG was really only slightly abnormal and after consulting with us she really believes we are dealing with febrile seizures. (Of course I wish he didn't have any seizures to worry about, so I guess things are relative.)

Laurie and I really felt like the seizures were most likely febrile seizures but our pediatrician felt the follow-up with the neurologist was prudent given and we took her advice. Brady has not had seizures apart from being sick but at the same time, we were worried that it might be more serious (e.g., epilepsy). We were both relieved to hear the diagnosis; we didn't know if we could stand one more thing being "wrong" in our lives right now.

Meanwhile, my mother remains at Sheppard–Pratt. She is by no means back to normal—which I guess is a relative term for someone in my mother's condition anyway—but she at least seems to be a little better than when she was first admitted. The doctors and staff continue to work with her to try and help. If we can keep the insurance companies and doctors from sending her home too early, maybe she can get the help she needs and at least have some dignity and quality of life for herself without completely wearing out my father—who is her primary caregiver when she is at home.

Perhaps the most significant glimpse of God's presence lately is that our family has been talking more openly than we ever have about mom's illness. For years, we were all conditioned to ignore the elephant in the room—i.e., don't talk about mom being sick because it might upset her. Suspend disbelief... Hold on to the myth that mom is okay.

I think now that veil of pretense has been shattered once and for all: Mom isn't okay and she hasn't been for a long time—not for most of my life! She's managed her illness to a degree over the years and did her best to function and raise her children and she should be commended for that. But the fact is, my mom has had serious struggles with mental illness over the years, and this time she got so bad that we could no longer pretend that everything was okay. She could no longer "keep the children in the dark" about it as she did to a large extent with her past hospitalizations—we're big boys now I guess. And I think in general that this has been a good thing.

My father, my brother, and I (as well as our spouses) have had some good conversations about mom and the reality of her situation that we have all been living with for many years. In some way, mom's hospitalization has allowed for some much-needed dialogue and maybe, just maybe, allowed some long overdue healing to begin. My mom's long illness has wounded each of us—myself, my brother, and my father—in different ways and we all need to experience healing and restoration.

A few weekends ago, Laurie and I were down at my parent's farm visiting my dad and my brother and his family were there. We were sitting out on the porch enjoying a nice summer evening. My brother's two teenage daughters were out playing on the lawn with our son Brady. It seemed a perfectly normal thing for a family to do, and yet it struck me that that kind of normal scene seldom played out at our house over the years. I don't know how to describe it exactly but there was a heaviness that was lifted from my mom not being present with us. I almost had the sense that some form of spiritual oppression had been removed from that house—at least temporarily. (It feels a little bad to have to admit this about my own mother, but it's also liberating to admit.) Somehow, my mom not being "in the room" seemed to free us all to be more at ease with one another, free to relax and play and rest. My dad later remarked how much he enjoyed having us all there together that evening and Laurie and I also enjoyed ourselves. It was just a nice time with family and it felt good.

It's somewhat ironic that the stunning beauty of a rainbow can only be seen when clouds and raindrops exist simultaneously with sun. And yet isn't that really something of a metaphor for our life here on Earth? It certainly seems to characterize my life lately. Grief and suffering almost always exist simultaneously with joy and celebration. I think the writer of Ecclesiastes appreciates this reality of life [Ecclesiastes 3:4] as does the Apostle Paul [Romans 12:15]. Some people mourn at the exact moment that others rejoice. Some people, as Laurie and I know all too well, do both almost simultaneously.

In a couple of weeks we will gather to baptize our daughter Rebecca in the same sanctuary where we gathered just over three months ago to say goodbye to Hope. We look forward to that day as we celebrate our daughter's life while continuing to remember to keep alive the memory of her twin sister. Rebecca's baptism invitation states it beautifully: In the face of Rebecca we will always see HOPE.

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Staggered by Life... but still Standing

It has been a while since I have posted an update and some may wonder how we are doing…

In short, it's kind of like, we were just starting to stagger back to our feet after the "punch" that was delivered back in early May, and then we get "hit" again. As they say: "When it rains... it pours." Read on for details …

Laurie and I are coping as best we can with life right now. We worshipped at Lodge Forest (our home church) for the first time since Hope's funeral yesterday. I think in general, we felt pretty good going back to worship and it was good to just go as worshippers at least once before returning in an official capacity.

As of now, Laurie plans to return to preaching on August 17. Her plan is to return to leading worship first and resume other roles in time -- i.e., she won't do hospital visits and funerals for a while longer for obvious reasons. We will have to see how it goes. Laurie's return will not signify that things are somehow "normal" for us or for the congregation. We can't pretend like all is well just because Rev. Laurie is back. That would not be healthy for anyone. We all need to continue to grieve the loss we have suffered. That's the only way to experience healing.

Moreover, Laurie's return to work will also mean new challenges for our family in terms of scheduling - i.e., have to hire a nanny for the kids. This presents a whole new set of challenges for us financially as a nanny (at least a good one!) does not come cheap. There are cheaper options but one gets what one pays for -- and do you really want to risk your children to save a few bucks? (We had a nanny before for Brady, but he is now old enough to go to the daycare center at Lodge Forest. However, now Becca will need care.)

However, despite all the challenges that are very real and must be addressed, it feels (to me anyway) that it is about time for us to return -- mid-August will at least be three months away after the funeral. Yes, we must continue to grieve and heal, but now it is time to welcome the community we serve to surround us and help us as we help them.

Unfortunately, on top of our own personal grief over losing Hope, the typical struggles of being parents of a toddler and infant, and Brady's health concerns (he has a neurologist appointment August 7 to investigate the seizures he has had) we must now contend with another "layer". My mom is at Sheppard-Pratt in Baltimore. She has had a lifelong (at least since I was about 2 years old) with mental illness. Mom has been hospitalized a couple of times in the past for her problems though it has never been as bad as this episode and honestly in the past I have been "sheltered" from knowing many details.

We certainly hope and pray my mom can get the help she needs; I think Sheppard-Pratt is the best place for her right now. We visited yesterday and I have to say it was hard. It was hard to be around the mentally ill (hard not to "stare" at times) and to be more specific, hard to see my mom in the state she is in. And yet it struck me that I needed to be there yesterday -- for my mom, yes, but for me too. My sense is that Jesus would not shy away from this kind of place and neither should I. He came to help the least, last, and lost. I can testify that mental illness causes much LOSS, both for the person afflicted and the family and friends impacted. I only begin to understand how much I personally have LOST from being the son of a mentally ill mother;  I have been wounded from my mom's long illness and have much personal healing that I need to do. And it will take time to heal ... 

Yet somehow, and I believe it to be by God's grace, I have managed to turn out okay. I have a beautiful wife and two wonderful children this side of eternity and not a day goes by that I am not thankful for that blessing.

Please continue to keep us and for my extended family—my dad in particular—in your thoughts and prayers. Dad has been mom's "caretaker" for a long time and though he keeps a tough front, I know this whole thing has worn him down too. He almost gets some "relief" now that mom is not at home every day under his care, and he doesn't have to make daily visits to see her.

On the positive side, we will celebrate Rebecca May's baptism on August 24. I have said that our family (and our church family) must grapple with a paradox of sorts. What I mean by that is that we have two events that seem like they shouldn't happen at the same time that we must try and reconcile. We will have to continue to grieve the loss of Hope Marie for a long time, but we also need to embrace and celebrate the life of her twin sister. While we never "move on" and forget Hope, we do look forward to the chance to focus on a more joyful occasion as we celebrate Rebecca's birth.

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Shaken to Our Core… Will Our Foundation Hold?

Most of you reading this probably know by now that we gave birth to twin girls on May 2, but one of the twins (Hope) was born with major brain damage and we had to take her off life support two days after she was born.

I looked back over my journal entries from the months leading up to Hope and Rebecca's birth recently. I see how much I prayed for the twins to be born safely and for us to be prepared for the reality of having twins and of having three children, and how much we made plans accordingly. And then, in an instant, everything changes… Things don't go as you expected they would… as you prayed so fervently over and over again that they would…

You try and brace yourself for what you think is coming. My journal is filled with prayers trying to prepare ourselves for what we thought was going to be our new reality—the birth of twins and going from one to three children in our family. You prepare yourself for the storm you think is approaching. You do the very best you can to get ready for what you think is coming—you brace yourself as best you can. And then the storm that comes is something completely different and worse than you ever imagined. We had to endure a tragedy that we had no idea was coming and that has been and continues to be extremely difficult.

Back on April 30 (two days before the girls were born) I wrote in my journal:

"The storm is coming Lord, and I pray that our anchor is secure. I hope we have built a firm foundation that will carry us through the challenging days that are coming. It seems I think I have concerns about just how secure we are. I fear that weaknesses will be exposed as we enter the rough waters ahead. I see this as one of the hardest challenges we have faced to date and we need be strong in You (God) to keep moving forward in the midst of all this."

I had no idea how true these words would end up being… I just had no idea!

If you will permit me, a meteorologist, to use a weather analogy (it's what I do! ☺) it may help you understand a little of what our life has felt like since early May.

I anticipated a storm, yes, but what I had in mind was a brief but intense storm that would soon enough pass and give way to calmer conditions as we adjusted to life with three children—something like a severe thunderstorm that we sometimes get in the summertime around here. Certainly it would be difficult for a time, especially for the first few years dealing with twins and a toddler, but it would also be counterbalanced by the joy of having three healthy children. I was sure that the joy would certainly outweigh the difficulty, so I thought we would be okay. I was wrong…

What we got was more like a stalled Noreaster pounding the coast with wind and rain for days. What we got has at times felt like a Category 5 Hurricane bearing down on our very souls. Just when you think you get a respite from the storm, something comes up to draw you back into the pain of our unexpected loss. You realize you were just in the calm eye of the storm and the worst of the storm may still lie ahead. You brace yourself and wonder what more lies ahead and whether the darkness will ever pass?

Not long after we were married, the community my where my wife Laurie serves as pastor lived through Hurricane Isabel. In the days prior to the storm, folks heard reports that a storm was coming and tried to prepare, but they had no idea just how severe the storm would be. After all, all the reports said it was just a Tropical Storm: How bad can that be? The community had lived through Tropical Storms before and they were nothing more than a nuisance. So they had no real reason to expect this one to be any different. Only one problem... the reports they relied on were wrong!

Hurricanes bring strong winds and rain, but as anyone who has lived through a hurricane knows, the worst danger is the storm surge they produce—a wall of water that the storm pushes ashore and sweeps over everything in its path. People who lived through Isabel know about this all too well. They went to bed expecting some minor flooding but they woke up to a catastrophe. The wind pattern set up perfectly to blow a wall of water up the bay and caused historic flooding in some areas. Many residents along the Mid Atlantic coast and the Chesapeake Bay were caught unprepared for just how bad the conditions ended up being… and they will never forget what happened as long as they live.

In much the same way, Laurie and I will never forget this time in our lives. I think it's fair to say that we were also unprepared for the tragedy that came our way. In fact, I think it's fair to say that no one expected this outcome when we went in that Friday morning to deliver our twins. Every report we ever heard from our doctors was that our babies were healthy. The hospital staff and Franklin Square had bassinets in our room ready to receive two healthy full-term twin girls per the doctor's reports. They too prepared for what they thought was coming. But then the unexpected happened and Hope was born with severe problems and Becca also had to go to the NICU for treatment. The doctors at Johns Hopkins were likewise shocked to discover just how extensive Hope's brain damage was. None of it was what we expected. The reports we relied on to make our decisions were flat out wrong.

It's really hard to explain what we feel to someone who has not experienced what we have experienced. But I imagine the process of grieving feels something like it must feel to live through a hurricane. There is the initial tragedy that strikes, often without much warning—in our case, having to say goodbye to Hope and plan and participate in her funeral. Although the event itself was very difficult and traumatic, like the intense wind and rain of a hurricane, you get through it and it soon enough passes and recedes into the past. But personal tragedy also brings along a wave of grief that sweeps over your life like a storm surge and knocks you off your feet. Like rising floodwaters, grief permeates every nook and cranny of your life and can cause terrible damage that must be healed. You have to let the tears and sorrow come and do their work; you can't pretend this didn't happen and stay healthy.

But I think there is an important difference between floodwaters and grief: Floodwaters recede after a few days; grief, on the other hand, doesn't just "go away" in a short time. Sometimes it seems like wave after wave of grief hits us. I suppose in some ways we will deal with waves of grief emanating from this tragedy of losing our infant daughter for a very long time, if not for our whole life.

The loss of Hope has certainly rocked our world. Saying goodbye to my 2-day old daughter was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and now we live every day with her memory. We see her face every time we look at her identical twin Becca. When Becca is asleep and tilts her head a certain way and opens her mouth, the resemblance to the last time we held Hope in our arms is uncanny. I suppose having an identical twin survive is both a blessing and a curse in this instance. We are grateful for our surviving daughter, who appears to be perfectly healthy; but we also have a daily living reminder of the daughter we lost, and that is bittersweet indeed. Every time Becca reaches a life milestone, we will be reminded of the daughter that did not survive to experience life. We must work hard to not have a cloud of grief and melancholy hang over Becca's life. We want to celebrate Becca's life, and not always have her live in the dark shadow of her sister's death.

The grief we experience can feel like the humidity on a particularly hot summer day; it is oppressive. This intangible but very real thing hangs over your life like a wet blanket and impacts all of the other activities you try and do. You feel lethargic at times and you can't put your finger on exactly why, but then you realize it's grief—and according to the experts, it's normal in these kind of circumstances. But it doesn't feel normal! In fact, for us, nothing feels normal right now; normal has to be redefined completely.

We are shaken to our very core at this time and forced to rethink everything we thought we knew about God and about many things in life and this can be uncomfortable for us—and also for others who may look to us for support and encouragement. But after all that has happened, it should not be a surprise to learn that we are shaken. Frankly, it is not easy for us to trust God right now. After all, we struggle with questions like: Where was God when we needed him? It sometimes seems from our perspective that God let us down when we needed him most. It just seems unthinkable that a loving God would let a 2-day old girl die. And yet this is the reality that we must face every morning when we get up …

And so, we are left to pick up the pieces and try and make sense of what just happened to us—to make sense of something that just seems fundamentally wrong. The cosmos seems out of whack for us. Preconceived notions about how the Universe works must be abandoned and rebuilt from the ground up, and that is hard to contemplate.

As we live through this tragedy day-by-day, Jesus' parable of the wise and foolish builders has come into my mind frequently. Whether you are a follower of Christ or not, it probably has wisdom to impart. (The Gospel of Matthew includes this as part of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount—Matthew 7:24-27—and it's also in Luke 6:47-49.)

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." —Matthew 7:24-27 (New International Version Translation)

Jesus urges us to build our house on the solid rock of his teaching so that when the "floodwaters" rise in our lives our house will still stand firm. And clearly I don't think he was just speaking literally. As I've lived through this tragedy I've had to find out just how firm my foundation is. I've always heard it said that the foundation has to be laid long before the storm comes and now I see the truth in that teaching, You can't build a foundation during the storm; it has to be in place before the floodwaters rise. If the foundation is not secure, then the waters will sweep you away completely and there will be nothing left to rebuild on.

At times Laurie and I have felt completely swept away by all we have experienced the past few months, but deep down I feel that something is in place that keeps us standing even when the most intense waves of grief sweep over us and we feel all is lost. I believe that something is our deep and abiding faith in God and his goodness—even when life circumstances are anything but good and we sometimes have trouble seeing God in the midst of the darkness.

By God's grace, we are surviving and that in time I believe we will experience healing in our lives, but it is a very long road to travel and we have only begun our journey. You must rebuild after the storm passes, but as the people of New Orleans that lived through Hurricane Katrina well know, that can be a long and difficult process. We must be patient with ourselves and give ourselves permission to grieve, to feel exactly what we feel and not apologize for it, and allow ourselves to move forward at the pace that seems appropriate to us—and not anyone else! I pray that our faith will sustain us through these dark and difficult days and, even as we struggle to see God's hand in this tragedy, that God will be working to rebuild us (and especially our faith) from the ground up and make us stronger than we were before.

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