The Gong

  "Andrew has a tumor," our doctor said. That was almost 2 months ago that we heard those words. My son has a tumor? Isn't it just a cough? I have been scrapbooking our family album from 2009 and have begun to put in the pictures right around the time that the cough began. It is amazing the new emotions that are hitting at this stage in the journey.
 A pastor of ours once gave a great analogy about pain. He said that the pain we feel inside when we hurt is like a gong. The initial "bang" hurts like crazy and throws your world into confusion. That is the way it felt when we first learned about Andrew's cancer. Our world went blank during those first few weeks. It was hard to function, to care for the normal things we do everyday. We were not sure his outcomes, his reactions to treatments, or how we would survive as a family. The "bang" alerted all those around us to help and rush in with meals, cleaning, cards, phone calls, gas cards, services, and love. It was a wild time.
 We are now in a chapter of this story that is calmer. Things are pretty "normal" and Andrew's health seems like it did before all this began. However, the noise of the gong still resonates in our heads and hearts. Rick and I have sat for the last few nights and tried to put our finger on why we are so disrupted. Why do we still feel stress and confusion even though life is going on as before? The obvious answer is because the cancer isn't gone yet, but we feel there are deeper issues at hand. People are still bringing meals and helping with chores. We have a few extra cars in our driveway most of the time. A nurse comes over a few times a week to give shots, draw blood, and help change dressings. Our girls are acting out and regressing in some forms for some extra attention. Life is still not normal. The effects of the "bang" are still scary and troubling. We still don't know the answers to the way this story will play out. God has been so gracious to Andrew and our family with the side effects and legistics of all the details. He has reminded us of His love and faithfulness, yet we still feel unnerved and lonely.
  It is a strange place to be. We should be joyful and excited that we are halfway done (and we are). We should feel the love of God around us by the hands that continue to provide (and we do). But we still doubt. We still doubt that Andrew will be completely restored to health. We still doubt that people truly want to enter into the chaos of our hearts and not just read our blogs to find out about us or stare at us like hamsters in a cage. We are still in some ways unable to even articulate how people can love us well....so we long for people to just be bold and try. We long for those evenings of friends on our couch or others that pull us out of this place just to "take our mind off of the fears." We still have needs that we are realizing go deeper than the spreadsheet on the computer. Needs of shepherding and grace.  Needs of counsel and marital wisdom. Needs of pursuit, not out of guilt, but out of care and true friendship. We need to be reminded that we are not alone, or even not too much to handle. That it is okay, even though things seem to be okay on the outside, to still struggle with the news of having a child with cancer. The weight is still heavy and we still feel the bangs of the gong. They do get less as we move closer to the end, but they still throw us off balance daily.  The day will come when we hope to be on the other side and even able to help others that suffer through pain and confusion, but I guess this is our time to be weak and allow others to help bare the weight of the banging gong.