Just Another Day

"All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."- Psalm 139:16 (NIV)

Thank you God, for 6,858 incredible days with Keaton Franklin Coker.  He was a gift, and it was an honor to love him.  

There's no such thing as "just another day."  Make each one count.  Keaton did exactly that.

October 5, 1995 - July 15, 2014

Sunrises

Sometimes in life there are seasons when NOTHING seems to make any sense.  Days that used to seem routine and orderly are suddenly thrown completely off balance.  A cancer diagnosis, for example, will usher in a season like that.  

At first, you scramble to get your bearings.  You try to understand.  You try to SEE through the fog.  You wonder where God is and how He could have let something like this happen.  Because afterall… you were doing life the RIGHT way:  hardworking, tax-paying, church-attending, dinner-together-as-a-family.

But slowly, the shock wears off and you begin to grasp your new reality.  Things that seemed hard and inconceivable begin to take shape.  You shift your question.  Instead of asking “WHY God?” you dare to let yourself ease into acceptance mode and ask “Ok, what NOW God?”  

Slowly, you begin to let yourself breathe again.  You THINK that maybe – just maybe – there is purpose, and perhaps you are even beginning to imagine what that purpose might be. There are rays of hope, and little by little, momentum begins to swing back into your camp.  You’ve weathered some setbacks, but a big breakthrough comes.  You get accepted into the best clinical trial in the country for your type of cancer.

But then there is a curveball. 

I love getting up early on our family beach trips.  I love having the beach to myself in the still of the morning.  I love that a sweatshirt feels good at 6:30am.  I love feeling the wind in my hair and tasting the salt from the breezes.  But mostly, I love to watch God paint a sunrise.  No two are alike.  His nature is infinitely artistic.  

This morning I watched as He began by simply stroking the colors of dawn onto the canvas. There was no particular shape.  Sometimes when I arrive on the sand, there are NO clouds.  On those mornings, I know I am in for a real treat.  The sunrise will be unfettered and spectacular.  Those are my favorites.

This morning, however, there was ONE cloud.

  

ONE.  

And it was in the exact spot where the sun was going to crest the horizon. Why would He deliberately block my view like that?

So I asked Him. 

He began to whisper, “sometimes in life there are seasons when NOTHING seems to make any sense…”

And then I watched as He formed the cloud into a shape.  To me, it looked like a manatee or perhaps a whale.  Definitely a sea creature with a whale-like tail sticking out of the water off to the left.   Then He painted the edges of the sea creature with dazzling orange light.  I laughed.  God was playing with His Lite Brite set.

I felt myself relaxing as I sat on a towel in the sand.  A jogger ran by with headphones at full blast, seemingly unaware of the Master at work.

Next God turned on His floor spotlights.  GIANT rays of light fanned out from the sea-creature-cloud straight up into the air.  

Then God posed a question to ME.  “These rays I just added give you hope, do they not?  Even though a cloud is blocking your view of the big orange ball cresting the horizon… the rays give you hope don’t they?”

“Well, yes.  I suppose they do.”

“Why?”

“Because the rays come from the source, so the source must not be far off.”

Then He brought a portion of scripture to mind. “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” – 1 Corinthians 13:12

For reasons that are difficult to grasp, Keaton has not responded to the new drug that was rumored to be the most promising thing on the horizon for his type of brain cancer.  A recent MRI provided medical proof that the cancer has the upper hand.  Thus, he is no longer a participant in the Clinical Trial.  They dropped us like a hot potato.  

So what's next?  It's very simple.  We continue to pray for a miracle and we continue to ask God to open the next door of treatment for our boy.  It just so happens that we don't know exactly what that is right now.  There's a big cloud blocking our view.

It is hard to see clearly right now, but we have great peace.  We do.  We have seen the rays, and we are confident that the Source is not far off.

Keep praying for Keaton.  And keep believing that even though we see dimly now… the day IS coming when we will see a new dawn crest the horizon.  Some believe that when that day comes, we will FINALLY get all our "WHY?" questions answered.  Perhaps they are right.  But I tend to believe that when that day comes, we will find the Source of our Hope so dazzling and so amazing... the whys won't matter much anymore.  None of them.

That Which Doesn't Kill You...

That which doesn’t kill you… nearly kills those around you.  Although that’s not the original version of the quote credited to the German philosopher Nietzche, it’s a more accurate one in our lives at the moment.  I’ll try to explain what I mean.

By way of general update, Keaton has graduated from high school and from “traditional” medicine.  We are now in the twilight zone of “experimental” medicine.  He’s participating in a pediatric clinical trial at Emory, rumored to be the most promising thing on the horizon in the fight against brain cancer.  We are incredibly thankful that God opened the door for him to be part of that trial.  Someday when the energy level is higher, I will share the God story with you of the miracle that secured Keaton a spot in that highly-sought-after trial.   But for today, I will simply update you on things in general and urge you to renew your prayers for Keaton.

The fact that he was accepted in to a pediatric trial is a HUGE blessing.  You see… unlike clinical trials in the adult world, NO patient in a pediatric trial is ever given a placebo.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that our 18 year-old O-Lineman is a tad large for the facilities.  Note the position of his feet relative to the end of the bed.  :-) 

The clinical trial Keaton is participating in contains STRONG medicine.  Our boy who played football all throughout chemo and radiation for two straight seasons, has now been temporarily sidelined by the new drugs.  Apparently, drugs that are strong enough to obliterate brain tumors don’t treat the rest of the person delicately.  It is a hard thing to see.  While I could write paragraphs about the specifics of Keaton’s current struggles, I choose to simply convey to you that it is a difficult season of treatment.  Now you understand the modified quote at the beginning of this post. It is hard on Keaton and it is hard on those who love him. 

So what should we do when the things our eyes SEE do not match what our belief system SAYS?  We have to make a choice.  We have to pick one or the other.

Most of us can quote the scripture from 2 Corinthians 5:7 “We walk by faith and not by sight.”  It has rolled off our tongue effortlessly for years.  There are bumper stickers extoling it, right beside the metal Jesus fish on cars throughout the Bible Belt. 

If only it were as easy to truly live it as it is to say it.

 

The truth is, even when we ARE trying to walk by faith… we trip and stumble and run into brick walls of doubt.  But thanks to amazing grace, God doesn’t require PERFECT faith – even faith as small as a mustard seed is sufficient.  Faith that cries, “I believe!  Help me with my unbelief” is sufficient.

When I find my faith steps clumsy and the brick wall large, I love the comfort offered in the first couple of verses of Psalm 40.  In the NET translation it reads:

I relied completely on the LORD, and he turned toward me and heard my cry for help.  He lifted me out of the watery pit, out of the slimy mud.  He placed my feet on a rock and gave me secure footing.

He has the power to help me when I’m stumbling.  He has the power to help me get around the brick wall of doubt.  He doesn’t do it by PROMISING me that He will heal Keaton completely in this life.  I still hold out hope for that, but it isn’t a promise.  He helps me navigate the brick wall by reminding me of His character.  He is good.  He hears my cry for help. I don’t know why Keaton is suffering right now… but I know it ISN’T because God doesn’t love us.  The cross settled that once and for all.  

It’s vacation time for us.  As we traditionally do each year, we will be traveling to the beach with nearly 50 members of our extended family.  Last year we rejoiced because we had Keaton at the beach with us, and he was full of life and energy!  This year, he and the rest of his immediate family, won’t be able to join us.  Will it be sad?  Yes.  But as I was pondering the sadness of that, God gave me a different way to view it.  It’s a fast of sorts.  Traditional fasting means that we do without food for a short season in order to seek God in a more urgent way.  Churches today often encourage “Media Fasting” where we do without TVs and computers for a short season in order to seek God in a more urgent way.

This year I will apply that fasting principle to Keaton’s absence on our family beach trip.  When the sadness of missing him threatens to overtake the joy… I will be intentional about turning that moment into a prayer for Keaton.  It’s a choice. 

Scripture reminded me this morning of the importance of prayer.  In the beginning of Luke’s gospel, the angel Gabriel visited Zechariah the priest.  Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were childless in their old age.  The words of Gabriel struck me afresh this morning.  “Do not be afraid Zechariah; your prayer has been heard.”

So I had this thought… “What if Zechariah had merely worried about his childless state?  What if he had spent ALL his energy being depressed and bitter?  WHAT IF ZECHARIAH HAD NOT PRAYED?”

That thought alone re-energizes my desire to continue praying for Keaton.  We will still make sand castles this year at the beach… but I’m not going to lie to to you.  This year the sand won’t be full of color.

Some seasons in life are like that.  In those times, we walk by faith and not by sight.  Perfectly?  No.  Even Zechariah THE PRIEST did not do it perfectly.  At one point Gabriel said to Zechariah: "because you did not believe my words..."  When we stumble, God will pick us up if we continue lifting our eyes UP.  "I lift my eyes up to the hills.  Where does my help come from?  My help comes from The LORD."  Keep praying for Keaton.  It matters.