An unfair match and a gracious opponent

(Photo from Harper's Baptism in July)

It’s a Tuesday at 4:30am. I reach for my alarm but by eyes are glued shut. A full six hours of sleep! What a gift! But no matter how much sleep I get, its never enough. By the grace of God we had a nurse cover our open shift last night. Today is the day we take Harper to the hospital for her multiple procedures under anesthesia. Harper wakes up to the sound of our rummaging and greets us with a smile per usual – though this hour is early even for her. We make our way to the hospital with a day’s worth of supplies and baby entertaining devices. I remember Harper’s first surgery under anesthesia like it was yesterday. Walking all 2 pounds of her to the door of the OR – saying goodbye with tears in my eyes… standing there alone after they wheeled her in not knowing for sure if I’d be seeing her alive again. Today was not that day. Thank God today was not that day. Today was going to be easy. A cake walk compared to our past experiences. Harper walked back to the OR in the arms of her sweet anesthesiologist as she princess waved to the entire hallway of nurses. A grin filled her face from ear to ear as she offered to share her pacifier with random strangers in the hallway. Much to her dismay, nobody took her up on it, but it’s the thought that counts, right? She didn’t even notice that we were not accompanying her to the room. My heart was much less anxious than I had expected. Today was going to be the day that they dilated Harper’s upper airway which they had expected had formed some granulation tissue by her vocal chords making it difficult for her to pass air to make sound. “Maybe today will be the day we get to hear her sweet voice for the first time” Ty said excitedly. Just maybe.

Just a few hours later we are met by the ENT doctor who was performing Harper’s upper airways scope and dilation. “Here is a picture of Harper’s upper airway before the procedure” She said as she revealed to us a photo depicting Harper’s airway that was completely swollen shut. “And here is a picture after the dilation” she said as she showed us a second picture that looked almost exactly the same as the first. “Unfortunately,” she went on, “There is not much we can do for this sort of swelling. There is a good chance Harper will need reconstructive surgery before we can consider taking the trach out.” Those words hung in the air like a dense fog. A lump formed in my throat. She went on to tell us that this kind of surgery is very complex, and because the airway does not fully develop until two and a half, doctors won’t perform it until then.  We were in shock, but Harper was coming out of anesthesia, so processing this news would have to wait. It wasn’t until later that we learned that this meant it was possible that we may not be able to hear Harper’s voice until after this surgery at 2 and a half. No contagious belly laughs, no childish screams and squeals, no babbling, no songs, no words. I quickly made peace with the reality that her life would be medially complex with the trach for longer than we were hoping… but the thought of Harper remaining silent for anther 2 years was much more difficult to swallow.

Does it ever feel to you like as soon as you get comfortable someplace that is when something immediately seems to go wrong? This has been the theme of the last 10 months with Harper. As soon as I seem to get my mind wrapped around something, the second my feet stabilize on my new rocky ground a new earthquake seems to strike. My heart wants to burst out with frustration – “Seriously, God? What gives?” Angry at God’s seeming lack of effort towards my well-being  my insatiable need for control and self-preservation quickly convinces me to turn inward for the solution. How can I fix this? I just want some semblance of control in my life… just a little bit of comfort…some predictability. God, if you won’t protect me, bless me, for goodness sake – even just throw me a bone every now and then, I will just have to do it myself.

Thousands of years ago a squirrely man named Jacob was a pro at taking matters into his own hands. A true control freak with a quick wit and an impressive ability to manipulate any situation to his benefit. A less noble Robin Hood character of sorts, but instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, he stole from his family members and gave to, well, himself. When Jacob was a young man he tricked his older brother Esau into giving him his birthright in exchange for a bowl of soup. You may have heard the story. He then goes on to trick his old, basically blind, dying father into giving him his blessing (which was reserved for Esau, the oldest son) by dressing in sheep’s wool (because Esau was a hairy man – how hairy do you have to be to be mistaken for a man with sheep’s wool on his hands?). This angers Esau...obviously…because Jacob has stolen his birthright and now his father’s blessing. So Esau sets out to kill Jacob. Hearing this news, Jacob flees to live with his uncle, Laban, who ends up giving Jacob a taste of his own medicine. Laban holds Jacob hostage working for him for seven years before allowing him to marry his daughter, Rachel. But in a deceitful turn of events, Laban tricks Jacob into marrying his eldest daughter, Leah instead. So Jacob must work for Laban another seven years before receiving Rachel’s hand in marriage. Jacob continues to seek for Laban’s blessing but never receives it, and after 14 years of manipulation Jacob flees Laban and sets out for his home country.

The scriptures where this account is recorded begin to take a bizarre turn in this next part of the narrative. One night, in the middle of all of this chaos, Jacob arises, sends his two wives and kids away along with everything he had and Jacob is left alone. Immediately a mysterious man appears and wrestles with Jacob all night until the morning. Later in the passage we find that this “man” is actually God himself. Wait a second. A wrestling match with God seems like a bit of an unfair match up, even for Jacob. Considering the whole “Creator of the Universe” mojo he’s got going on, it feels a lot like Jacob is set up for failure here. Why does God even engage in a wrestling match that he knows he is going to win? Is he just trying to crush Jacob? Teach him a lesson? “That will teach you not to sin again, Jacob.” This thought has been haunting me since the day Harper was born. Are you just trying to crush me? Teach me some cosmic lesson so I am “a better person” after all of this?

The man (God) then dislocates Jacob’s hip and proceeds to suggests that they end the wrestling match. First of all, if this was me I would be PISSED. God comes, breaks my leg and then says “ok I’m done here, move along… I’ve got other people to make miserable today.” BUT, I would gladly take God up on his offer to end the wrestling match. THANK YOU, YES, let’s be done, please. But Jacob is nuts. “I will not let you go until you bless me,” he replies. WHAT?! Jacob, dude, you lost. Let it go, man. But surprisingly God does it! God appeals to Jacob's request and blesses him. God then does something unthinkable – he redeems Jacob and gives him a new name. The name Jacob appropriately meant “cheater”, but after their quarrel, God changes Jacob’s name to Israel which means “he struggled with God.” The encounter ends, the sun rises and Jacob leaves, limping because of his hip.

If you’ve made it this far into my ramblings you may be wondering what this has to do with Harper or our story. These past few weeks I’ve been meditating on this passage and struggling to understand it. And as I’ve wrestled with this passage I’ve wrestled with God. The sun has not risen, the match is not over, but I do feel like I’m limping, and I can begin appreciate the process of redemption through a changing identity. So, here are a few truths and some hope I’ve found in the midst of the struggle. Perhaps if you are in a season of wrestling with God these may be an encouragement to you.

1.     BUT nothing. You do not need to justify your struggle to anyone with the phrase “but God is good” or anything of the sort. Sometimes life is just HARD. Loved ones die. People become chronically ill. Marriages fail. Friends reject you. Schools reject you. Dreams of building a family are crushed with every negative pregnancy test. And it is hard. Really hard. Earth-shatteringly, don’t want to get out of bed, hard. Often times we feel the need to add a bumper sticker to the back of every one of our real life difficult struggles with a platitude to make people feel less uncomfortable when we talk about the difficulties of life. God does not need you to slap a bumper sticker on your pain that acknowledges his goodness. God is confident enough in his own righteousness that he does not need you to defend it.

2.     Growth means staying in the fight, but it doesn’t mean you have to like it. For many months of Harper’s journey I defined growth as becoming more and more grateful about my circumstances. If I could wake up in the morning and feel genuinely grateful about my circumstances then that meant I was growing in my faith. “Just be grateful she’s alive,” I would think. If I could genuinely feel pleasantly grateful then I was succeeding at growing in my faith through this pain. I do not mean to discount the spiritual practice of gratitude. I truly am genuinely grateful that Harper made it out of the ICU alive… because many people in our situation can’t say the same. I do thank the Lord every day for Harper’s life and even for her trach and her ventilator because right now, they are saving her life. Literally. The problem with this recipe for spiritual success, however, is that every day I felt like a failure. I had (and still have) so much anger, guilt and hurt pent up inside of me. I felt distant from God because of my lack of love for my circumstances and therefore felt spiritually stuck. But what if instead of defining growth as pleasant unwavering gratitude we started defining growth as staying in the fight – showing up to the wrestling match every day? One of God’s most fervent followers of the Old Testament, Job, sharply curses the day he is born throughout his suffering, and yet the scriptures are sure to note that even “in all this Job did not sin with his lips.”

3.     There are no shortcuts to intimacy with God. Much like Jacob, in today’s world especially we are always in search for shortcuts to life. We want the quickest, easiest, most painless route that ensures the most desirable outcomes. Weight-loss supplements that promise you can eat whatever you want, barely exercise and lose 12 pounds in a week are all the rage, amusement parks offer “fast passes” so you don’t have to wait in line, Chick-fil-a, Chipotle, Panera will now all deliver straight to your door. Now more than ever we are conditioned that as soon as we want something we should be able to find a way to get it with no pain, no wait and little effort, and unfortunately this frame of mind has not done us any favors when it comes to spiritual intimacy with God. Jacob was an expert at using his quick wit to shortcut results. He cheated the system and used trickery to shortcut spiritual blessing from his Father. Where did that land him? Oppressed for 14 years in a foreign land. It isn’t until Jacob begins his homeward journey that he is confronted with a face-to-face, no shortcuts, wrestling match with God. And what does Jacob say to God? “I will not stop until you bless me.” Seems sort of odd for the clear underdog to insist on continuing the fight, doesn’t it? Yet God grants Jacob’s request for spiritual blessing, and this time Jacob walks away with a limp. He doesn’t flee the country in fear, escaping in the nick of time without a scratch like last time, but this time, he comes about his blessing honestly.  Many times experiencing true intimacy with God requires us to get our hands dirty, grab ahold of our doubts and fears with the Lord and refuse to let go no matter how badly we feel like we’re getting beat up. And yes, sometimes we will walk away with a limp.

4.     Whether you feel it or not, you are in the ring with a gracious opponent. You very well may not feel like God is being gracious with you in the midst of your suffering. That I can entirely understand. It seems cruel for God to even initiate this wrestling match in the first place. It seems cruel for him to dislocate Jacob’s hip. Truthfully I’ve wrested with this passage for many weeks. Many times through my journey with Harper I’ve felt like Jacob – caught in what seems to be an impossible wrestling match with God – begging him to yield certain results with Harper and at every turn I felt like another joint was dislocated and I was being asked to keep limping along only for the next blow to come a few weeks later. Yet as I began to question the passage more intently I began to understand differently. You see, before this hand-to-hand match with God, Jacob was already wrestling. He was wrestling with God and with man. What did he want? Blessing. Who doesn’t, right? We all want someone to affirm the good in us – to declare our value and worth. Jacob’s father had favored Esau, but Jacob so desperately wanted his father to bless him – even if it meant a blessing under false pretenses. He seeks blessing from Laban but instead receives 14 years of essentially slavery. Then Jacob wrestles with God. The passage reports that God simply reached down and touched (TOUCHED!) Jacob’s hip and his hip was instantly dislocated, and he was not able to walk the same again. All it took was one touch. This suggests that God could have completely destroyed Jacob, but instead He redeems him. This time, the blessing Jacob had been searching for all along was met in God, and this time Jacob came by it honestly. Yes, he walks away with a limp, but he also walks away with an entirely different identity and a new name. Years later another wrestling match between God and man would occur. This time, however, God would be wrestling for us in the person of Jesus Christ. But instead of a dislocated hip, Jesus would be utterly destroyed on our behalf. He would take the punishment we deserved for sin so we could receive the blessing that he deserved from God. So that now, in fact, though we wrestle with God he is no longer our opponent, but our greatest ally. Though we fight, and question and wrestle and doubt and sometimes scream profanities at 4 am because that stupid G-tube leaked again, God is not wrestling against us, but wrestling for us. But sometimes a dislocated hip is what saves us from a life-time of searching for blessing and identity in the wrong places, and sometimes a limp is what reminds us where we finally found it.