When you don’t understand

Let me do some introductions. But first, let me admit that there are SO, SO many things wrong with this photo. The 1980s couch. My brother’s jeans. My entire outfit. The glasses. My hairstyle. The home interior wheat on the wall behind the couch. My grandma’s seemingly refusal to smile.

But anyway, there’s a point to me posting this embarrassing photo. Those are three amazing ladies on that couch. On the left is my great aunt Alfreda, who loved fashion, writing, and love; her daughter Shirley in the center; and my Grandma Polly on the right. Alfreda died when I was in high school; Grandma passed away five years ago this August.

But this post really focuses on Shirley, the smiling lady in the middle with her arms around me. Over the past year to year and a half, Shirley been dealing with cancer. Though she never smoked (she did work in a factory), she had lung cancer and had much of one of her lungs removed. She’s been declared cancer free about three times, each time only to find another spot within weeks. Right before Memorial Day weekend, she was having trouble walking. This is particularly problematic since Shirley is an active person. She loves people and loves to talk and has worked on the sales floor at J.C. Penney in Cape Girardeau, Mo., for years. At that point, her husband, Robert, called an ambulance to take Shirley to the emergency room because they both realized at some level that something was wrong.

At the emergency room, Shirley was basically told to just deal with it. Her complaints about not being able to walk or use her legs and feet were ignored and not even written on her chart—so when they did order a chest X-ray, the technicians didn’t know, stood her up, and she fell. Eventually, after all of this, she was admitted. And eventually, after more diagnostic missteps, the problem was discovered: Shirley had a malignant tumor on her spine.

The doctors did surgery, but Shirley’s diagnosis isn’t good. She’s in the hospital and in seemingly good spirits, but she has no movement below the waist. The in-hospital rehab is working to teach her how to live the rest of her life in a wheelchair. While she may regain some mobility, it’s unlikely she will ever walk again because of the extensive damage to her spinal column and nerves caused by the tumor.

My mom told me this news yesterday. And in a week that had already been so emotionally hard with friends losing children, a friend’s grandfather passing away, and various other stresses, the news seemed heavy and overwhelming. I sat down to write, believing all the good writers who say you should write when you feel like it and when you don’t, but the first thing I scrawled across the page was simply: I don’t want to write.

That entry in the journal quickly became a prayer—a prayer for when I don’t understand. A prayer for when I’m tired of the brokenness of this world. A prayer when I ask with David, “How long, oh Lord? How long?” A prayer in which I long for the wholeness of heaven.

I don’t understand why life here is so hard. I truly wish I did and often wish I could see more from God’s perspective than mine.

But even when I don’t understand, I put my trust in Him. That He is at work. That He is doing something I can’t see. That somehow when all I see is a broken, ugly mess, He will use it to declare His glory to the world.

Sometimes, my faith is smaller than others. But still, I choose to trust—even when I don’t understand.