COME THOU FOUNT

You know that story in Luke 7 where a woman (“a sinner” it says, presumably Mary, according to John 12) was in the house of a Pharisee, and she washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair? It’s always painted as a beautiful portrait, almost poetic. In my imagination, though, it’s always been sort of… unflattering. My mental image thinks of a 5 year old boy whose mother just told him to wash his own feet after stomping barefoot through the mud: SORT OF clean, but not REALLY- hints of mud still showing through cracks and crevices. “How could she have cried enough to REALLY get all that dust and grime off his feet? And even if she did, how can you dry something with hair?” Not to detract anything from the real point of the narrative, but it’s the story that’s been on my mind this afternoon.

I have certainly wept extensively over my own brokenness throughout my life, and though I’m 100 times more emotional than I ever was before having kids, I typically never cry much at one time. Perhaps that’s my struggle with the Luke 7 story, I’ve never been able to imagine enough tears at one time to adequately clean two feet.

I think I have a better understanding now of how that might work. Holding our little boy today, we weep not over our own spiritual brokenness as Mary did, but over our son’s physical brokenness. Just as there was nothing Mary could do for her own spiritual state, there is nothing we can do to reverse time for Brock. I know countless parents have felt this way. Perhaps that makes all the difference: it’s not too difficult to hold back tears for yourself, it’s a different matter when it’s your own child.

The past two days he has had speech therapy come in and work with Taryn on helping him nurse and take a bottle. He still has the feeding tube in, and he’s taking only breast-milk. He has failed both of those tests because he has been making sounds that typically denote aspirating, meaning his suck-swallow-breathe reflexes/muscles are out of practice (due to the breathing and feeding tube). The speech therapists believe that the risk for pneumonia is too high to try for any extended amount of time (lest fluid be going into his lungs if he’s not drinking the right way). The neurologist consulted the MRI and there’s a high likelihood that a portion of his brain that controls those reflexes were affected in the initial stroke, meaning he could have to totally re-learn something that was completely instinctual before the meningitis. Several therapists and doctors have already mentioned the chance of him going home with a feeding tube (3+ weeks from now) if he hasn’t mastered that basic skill. And they don’t just mean for a few weeks or months, but potentially years- as if he might NEVER learn how to swallow, etc.

It’s incredibly difficult to see how well he has done with most of the acute symptoms and setbacks from the meningitis, but to see what could potentially be his future in the long-run with these other hurdles is so painful. God deserves all praise for the progress he has made so far- but MAN it’s so hard to take time to express our overwhelming thankfulness for that when it seems like the real burden is still ahead of him. Please don’t stop the positive comments, and please don’t stop the prayers on his behalf. I have to admit, though, it’s easy to get frustrated when a comment makes it seem like all the pain and struggle is behind us as if we’re totally on the other side now- which is hardly the case. I know that’s nit-picky, but that’s just raw, illogical emotion flowing out- still angry and sad that our little boy ever got this in the first place, still hurting for the innumerable hurdles still ahead.

It’s that sadness and hurt that arises as I hold Brock up on my chest, tears from Taryn and me pouring out all over his hair. Forget washing feet with those tears, you could adequately shampoo and bathe a whole person with them. Another foot-washing ceremony comes to mind from John 14 where Jesus is now the servant. Shortly after Peter refused to allow Jesus to do this and Jesus exclaims that he must be washed in order to “have a place” with him, he insists that Jesus bathe his entire body- as if to exclaim, “I want to be COMPLETELY yours! Get rid of everything imperfect inside me and replace it with yourself!” There’s so much more depth to this story- but suffice it to say that I feel like Peter right now, begging God to bathe Brock’s body completely in mercy and save him from the potentially long-lasting effects of this illness, begging him to bathe my family in peace and my daughters with sympathy and understanding.

Brock’s middle name is Jacob, as I laid out in a previous post. Well mine is his descendent, David. I don’t know what level of prophetic wisdom my own mother had in that decision, but those cheesy, over-simplified little Facebook “which [Bible] character are you?” quizzes typically denote that I am in fact, most like David. I’m no poet, but perhaps like me, David also wrote down his prayers for grace and mercy and guidance as a mere therapeutic tool. Perhaps that others may grow closer to God at the expense of his own shortcomings and brokenness. Who knows? However, I have always seen in David an honesty that I feel compelled to emulate. David’s life was a rollercoaster of triumph, defeat, ecstasy, agony, anger, and contentment. We’ve gone through all of those emotions in this rollercoaster. As tempting as it is to shout out fits of anger, resentment, or abandonment (which God is undoubtedly big enough and loving enough to handle), we still know God is somehow present through it all. And while we pray diligently for peace and mercy (as we hope you are, too), even through the anger and frustration (perhaps especially BECAUSE of that) we also sing:

“Come thou fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing thy grace

Streams of mercy never ceasing

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above

Praise His name, I’m fixed upon it

Name of thy redeeming love.”

Grace and Peace

Brad and Taryn