I haven’t known where I am the last two weeks. Literally. I came to a hospital I’ve never been to before via the front seat of an ambulance; whisked through an emergency room entrance.

When the girls sent me home a few days later, it was like feeling my way through a dark room in the middle of the night.  Finding my way out of Saint Joseph’s tower, through a maze of cream-colored hallways, across a land bridge, and into a concrete parking lot was no small feat by myself. Thankfully, once in my car, a few turns put me on a straight shot to our neighborhood.

Even though our house is ten minutes from Saint Joe’s, the road to the hospital was an all new prospect.  The next morning, still by myself,  I realized that I didn’t know how to get back … just that the hospital is a tower on the hill and doesn’t have many other big buildings around it.  Bending to look through my windshield, I saw the tower and its brightly lit cross. The soft blue light flowed into the darkness and lit my way in that pre-dawn hour.

Saint Josephs Hospital in Tacoma … a reminder that the Cross lights the way. If you squint, you can see the cross.

The cross on top of our hospital encouraged more than one of us in the family.  Our international student, a very young Christian who hails from China, wrote this note to Mike (printed with permission):

Dear Dad:
When I came to this hospital. I saw a giant cross on the top of the building, which means God is watching you and taking care of you, right?
I just talked to you;  I know you heard me and I know you’ll be better pretty soon. We’re all waiting for you.  God loves you.  He’ll make you recover soon.
Love you. Charlotte

Every verse … every note … every song … every text, every email, every whisper of encouragement … we’ve hung onto every word. They have all pointed us to the cross.

Looking through some pictures that I took just a few weeks ago, I realized that one of my favorite walks affords a wonderful view of Saint Joseph’s.  I’m not feeling so lost these days, but it may well be that as we stand in persistent prayer for Mike’s heart to continue to strengthen and for the tumor to lessen, that I may need to take that walk and  look up again  … and again … and again at that cross on a hill.  How wonderful that it rests on a building that represents healing.  I may need to fix my gaze in that direction as one more reminder of where our help full comes from.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

We have come a long ways in 12 days.

Property of sausmus.com
Trusting God in a dark time. Taken March 11, 2015

 

Taken at 4:00 this morning (March 21st), Mike sits reading the "guest book" created while he was in his coma. Our best day yet, so far. So much laughter and praise coming from him.
Taken at 4:00 this morning (March 21st), Mike sits reading the “guest book” created while he was in his coma. Our best day yet. So much laughter and praise coming from him.

It might surprise you to know that my tendency is to be a fairly private person, but we continue to share openly our story and photos like these because what has happened in these last weeks has been far beyond us. This is your story too, because you are standing with us for God’s will and wonder to be at work.  We remain awed … and grateful … beyond words.