in the life of jolly. Where can I start on such a day as this? Perhaps last night, as I was telling 1 that I really didn’t want her to head out on her own today, going away to school again. Yeah, that’s where. But it doesn’t end there.
It’s been a long road for 1. She lost a full year of school because of her illness. Were it not for the local community college allowing her to get back into the life of a student, it would’ve been a year and a half.
I can honestly say that not only does God answer prayer but that He does it His own way, in His own time. And that His way and His time is better than my request. For my request was for 1 to be healed immediately, be back to the same little girl that I sent off to school. But His answer was to heal 1 slowly, through the skill of a young doctor, through the persistence of her mother, through the miracle of modern medicine. It is said that iron sharpens iron and that trial by fire produces gold. Both are accurate in 1’s case.
For as I observed this process, I saw the child as a woman. I saw the doctor as gold. I saw the mother as a rock, willing to do anything to help her child.
Over the last 16 months, the child in my eyes became the woman that her mother raised her to be. Strong. Enduring. Courageous. As far as I know, the only tears of pity she raised were in her bedroom late at night, wondering when the trial would end. She never cursed her illness in front of me. She never questioned “why me?”. And she could have. Most would have. She is the child her mother raised.
But a child no more is she. No, she is the woman she ought to be. The apple of her daddy’s eye is she, the little girl no more to be.
As I played the guitar in class today, asking for prayer requests along the way, I stopped and praised this child of mine, this child that strengthens me. For if I ever sway, I need only to look her way. And there, what will I see? This child, that strengthens me.
I love you.
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