This Is the Way - Encountering hope in the storm.

This post is part of an ongoing series of journal entries beginning with "Coming Back"

July 19, 2015


As I awoke this morning it took a few minutes for the pit in my stomach to return and remind me of where I was (a Palo Alto hotel room reserved for families with cancer).  “Oh God, I don’t want to do this day.  I don’t want to do any of them.”   Never the less, up we went, getting ready for the morning.  Scott (my brother) and I sat outside on the sunny patio catching up over coffee and a pastry.  It's been a while since we've seen each other...a long while!  It was nice to be sharing sibling space on a beautiful California summer morning, but it felt like a storm was brewing inside my heart.

As we left our comfortable patio space and re-entered the building, the rigid and reflective walls of the elevator felt rather apropos.  There we stood, suspended between levels of living, waiting for the doors to open so we may carry on.  I felt so conflicted about what I saw in those reflections.  We were an incomplete portrait, missing family members and framed with shock.  I saw myself furrowed in the face.  I wish I didn't look so grouchy. There are few pictures of my Brother and I together, but there we were captured on those tiny doors - doors that were about to open into...something.  I wanted to close the doors and try a new floor.  But at every stop resided stories like ours.  Someone working hard to stay alive, while their loved-ones worked hard to find a path and keep breathing.  Everybody is nice here.  They open doors before you've reached for the handle, but the empty IV towers and lined up wheel chairs are visual reminders of why this special treatment at the hotel desk is so easy to come by. 

Walking through the entrance of Stanford is like walking into an alternate universe.  It's the Stanford Universe.  Where hepa filters greet the weary traveler and blue scrubs with diplomas walk by in teams of five.  Sleeping family members line the couches of the waiting areas much like an airport gate at 3 am.  This is where they sleep when guest houses are full and overnight stays are beyond the budget, but no one opens the door for them here…at least not really.  Down the long corridor we walked, passing doctors, radiology labs, nursing stations until we reach the atrium, which opens up like a sanctuary amid medical chaos.  Colorful flowers and little wooden benches with plaques can go rather unappreciated until they become the only respite.  How this beauty enters the eyes and soothes the soul.  I am grateful for this garden, and that God thought to make reminders of his goodness from soil and dirt.  This "wall canvas"  doesn't cost a dime.  It doesn't matter your means; this display of attentive care is for everyone.  Feast your eyes, dear husband with three small children, or wife of 60 years, or gangster-gone-jaundice.  Let the delicate blossoms remind you there is a Gardener who attends us all.  You, we, they, matter to Him.  There isn't a tear shed that He does not notice and collect.   

I wonder how my kids are doing back home.  Are you attending to them, Lord? They will probably sleep until noon, largely insulated from this tempest, packing for their long-awaited trip.  OH God!  The trip!...We are set to leave in five short days for Slovenia.  I don’t know what to do.  This mission with the kids seemed so clear when we decided to go.  How could we have known what would come up?  How could your voice have seemed so clear when we said yes? You knew about my dad then, right?  Do I – do we – stay or do we go?  I'm not sure if knowing you had this planned from the beginning brings assurance or a deeper mistrust right now.  I want to be mad at you, but somewhere deep in the recesses of me lives a secret atrium – a “holy of hollies” – where, in your mercy, you are staying present and I am not capsized.  Albeit ever so slight and quiet, it holds as a beacon in the night.

This is no detour.  This is the path.  These are the deeper, richer things of God.

"Although the Lord has given you bread of privation and water of oppression, He, your Teacher will no longer hide himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. Your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, "this is the way; walk in it."  Isaiah 30:21