"I am undone..."

My friend sent an e-mail.  Her adult daughter is ill - in a fight for her life - and my friend begged for prayer and support.  Her daughter had a terrible seizure and stopped breathing for a moment.

"I thought she was going to pass away in my arms.  I am crushed right now and need your prayers.  I need the strength of God.  I am undone..."  I understand her feelings, the raw emotion that fills a mother's heart when her child in in peril.

Our visits with Lacy are increasingly painful.  He often yells at us - it is as though we can do nothing right - and we have to leave to give him time to calm down.  How our lives have changed.  Was it only a few years ago that he couldn't wait to see us, or to come home to visit?  Now he often glares at us with suspicion and calls the "police" to have us arrested.   How is Lacy doing?  Well about the same.  Every time we see him, a little more is gone.   It's a good visit when he doesn't speak at all, only looks at us and smiles, then mumbles to the people in the room who aren't really there.   He might let us hug and kiss him.  My heart aches for what is lost to us.   I am crushed.  I am undone.

Today I heard that another family is facing the tragedy of HD.  A father has been diagnosed.  His six children are at risk.  I was asked "What can be done?"  There is no silver lining.

It seems that right now there is pain all around us.  So many are suffering.  I pray for each of them, and my heart is weighed down even more, knowing that we share the agony of watching a loved one's suffering.

"What shall we say then?  If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will He not with Him also give us everything else? Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Romans 8:31-32; 35; 37-39

What shall we say then?  Huntington's Disease, Cancer, Dementia; none of them have the last word.  These things can't separate us from the love of God.  We might labor under this burden, but we don't labor alone.   I feel God's presence and know that Kenny, Lacy, and I are not separated from His love.  Lacy is surrounded by His love.  God will hold our son in His hands.   God will carry us when we can't walk.  So many promises, so much comfort, even through the pain of this life.

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