In This World You Will Have Trouble...but the story doesn't end here.
One of my favorite verses has become John 16:33. It hasn't always been my favorite. I'm pretty fickle when it comes to Bible verses. There are a few on which I hold tightly throughout the years, but for the most part, "the favorites" change as my needs change.
But somewhere along the way, miracles began happening.
At two, the water began draining of its own accord. Our neurologist had a "feeling" about Sophie and wanted to wait it out if we were willing to do so. We were.
As the water drained, Sophie began walking and talking. It were if a light had suddenly been turned on inside of little Soph. Everyone fell in love with her: she was all beautiful blond hair and big blue eyes.
Through the years the leg braces became shorter and shorter until they totally disappeared all together. She was running and playing and swinging and even playing soccer.
Though math will never come easily for Sophie---that application part just eludes her--she can add, subtract, multiple, and divide with the best of them. Her English has taken off, and I find new wonders in her comprehension daily.
She is our miracle baby. At one point, we had doctors telling us that she would never hold up her head, walk, talk, grow hair, have teeth, and would be in severe pain all her life. When she started walking, I wanted to blow all the doctors the world over a great big raspberry. That'll show you!
Two years ago when we thought our troubles were finally behind us, Sophie was diagnosed with scoliosis. My heart hurt so much that I thought it might burst from the pain of once again telling my child that she would have to wear yet another brace--this time one that wrapped around her body and would be there for years to come--one that the doctors told us could mean the difference between years of operations embedding countless rods in her back--new rods after each change in her body--or not.
The summer of 2012, Sophie began wearing the back brace. At first she appeared okay with the brace. We bought her tons of new loose-fitting outfits to "hide" the brace. As the days passed, we began to see a new Sophie, a withdrawn, serious child in place of our carefree, laughter-filled daughter. The darkness had descended. Since this time, we have seen bits of sky sporadically break through, but truly that Sophie is gone forever. When I compare the two versions, I see a playground filled with sunlight, laughter, and tousled blond hair juxtaposed with an empty, silent, dark school yard.
I quit work in January 2013. Sophie had had enough. Life had become too real and too cruel. I was called to her school day after day to pick her up because she just couldn't cope. I couldn't either. I taught almost one hundred students a day at the high school. I was lucky to reach even a third of the ones who truly needed help. But I knew that I could reach a certain ONE if given the chance.
Sophie and I walked out of the public schools for good January 19, 2013. Her anxiety got a bit worse the first weeks, but then I literally threw the brace out the window and things got a whole lot better. We began to hear laughter again, but never the same carefree forever childhood tones as before. She began excelling at reading again, and even math wasn't that evil monster that couldn't be faced.
Then something happened again.
I don't know what it was or why it came, but it came.
For over two months now, Sophie has been battling anxiety. Each day it creeps a bit further into her heart and mind. She can barely function outside the home, and even here wrapped tightly in my arms, she cries of impending death. She believes that she is dying and cannot bear the thought of being without one of us: mother, father, sister.
I have never know such darkness. It is though light has never existed. And never will.
The nights are horrible. The days barely bearable. As the actual days of the year begin bearing more sunlight, I see our figurative days becoming darker and darker.
Of course we are seeking "professional" help. But I just don't know. I don't know that this will help. We are placing many of our hopes on them.
I am a doubting Thomas on so very many levels. I want to touch the palms of His hands, the hole in His side. I want to see, I want to see Jesus. I want to know that He lives, that He is real and that He will save her, that He will save us all.
The thread on which I hold has become frayed and opaque. The winds blow and the rain falls. And yet we hold.
Today, this very moment, the ONLY thing that sustains me is "But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33
