Letting Go of Disappointments and Painful Losses (5 page)

In the quiet of that hotel room I knew that God was up to something in my life and that my pregnancy had in no way caught Him by surprise. For some incomprehensible reason, this was part of His plan to produce more beauty and fragrance in my life.

Ever so reluctantly, I waved my little white flag.
Okay, Lord
, I said.
I surrender to You.
That was no small first step! I wish I could say that it had been easier for me. How do you and I let go of the disappointments and losses we’ve suffered? We relinquish control. We surrender.

But not to “fate.” Not to our emotions. Not to bitterness. No, we deliberately yield the controls of our life to God.

Oh, yes, it all sounds nice enough—and spiritual to boot. But, friend, surrender isn’t always such a tidy bundle. Often it’s a messy package of painful feelings like anger, rage, and deep sadness, which
eventually
give way to release and peace. As we surrender, we often feel frustrated and angry at God, at other people, at ourselves, and at life.

Oftentimes our saying
Yes, Lord
, simply opens the door to the grieving process. We suddenly find ourselves at the very
core of our pain and sadness: the heavy emotional burden that has to be released before we can feel right again. By allowing the grief to enter through the front door of surrender, healing can slip in, quiet and unannounced, through the back door.

Willpower isn’t the key. Letting go is.

For many years I’ve heard men and women from all walks of life say things like:

• “I’ve invested too many years of my life trying to make people be what they don’t want to be, or do what they don’t want to do. I’ve driven them—and myself—crazy in the process.”
  
• “I spent my childhood trying to make an angry father who didn’t love himself be a normal person who loved me.”
  
• “I’ve spent years trying to make emotionally unavailable people be emotionally present for me.”
  
• “I’ve poured my life into trying to make unhappy family members happy, even though they don’t seem interested in making the slightest effort.”
  
• “I’ve given the last twenty-five years of my life trying to make my alcoholic husband stop drinking.”
  

What they are all saying is something like this: “I’ve spent much of my life desperately and vainly trying to do the impossible and feeling like a dismal failure when I can’t.” It’s like planting carrot seeds and trying passionately, creatively, and desperately to make those little plants grow prize tomatoes—and feeling defeated when it doesn’t work.

By relinquishing control and surrendering to God, we gain the presence of mind to stop wasting time and energy trying to change and control things we can’t change or control. Surrender gives us permission to stop trying to do the impossible and to focus on what is possible.

I wish I could say that surrender, letting go, is a onetime event. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, it’s not. Yielding to the Lord is a continual, daily, sometimes hourly process. When God and I were locked in a wrestling match in that hotel room, it was only round one. Unbeknownst to me, down the road there were many more rounds to go.
¹

Less than three months later, our baby arrived, six weeks early and with a few surprises of his own. On the day Nathan was born, something was wrong. Terribly wrong. He
was blue, not breathing well, and his little cry sounded muted. Instead of placing him in my waiting arms, the technicians scurried around trying to help him breathe. John held my hands, and we prayed for Nathan, asking God to help him and to guide the doctors’ efforts.

I kept asking the nurses if Nathan was all right, but all I could get out of them was, “He’s in good hands” and “They’re helping clear his passageways.” When I asked if I could nurse him, they said they didn’t know. An hour later, impatient with vague answers and frustrated about being separated from my son, I asked the delivery nurse to wheel me into the care unit where they were working with Nathan. The pediatrician on call came over to talk with us. I didn’t know this woman, and I didn’t want to believe a word she was saying.

“Mrs. Vredevelt, your son is not oxygenating well, so we’re trying to help him with oxygen and IVs.”

“Is this life threatening?” I asked.

“It could be,” she replied. “It’s also my observation that he has Down syndrome. I’ve called a cardiologist to examine him because I think his heart isn’t functioning properly.”

At that point I wasn’t tracking well and blurted out, “What does this mean?”

“It means he will be mentally retarded, Mrs. Vredevelt. There is also a higher incidence of leukemia for those with Down syndrome. There’s a catheter in his heart, and the technicians are still working to stabilize him.”

I spent that night alone in my room, listening to happy families around me celebrating their babies. My own doctor was
in Russia. My pediatrician was on vacation. My parents were in California. John and the kids were home in bed, and a tiny boy named Nathan Vredevelt was in a sterile room under impersonal fluorescent lights, fighting for his life.

And me? I began to wonder just how much God really loved me. As hot tears rolled down my cheeks, I whispered into the night,
God, what is this? A bad joke? Well, I’m not laughing!

The next morning, the cardiologist ran a battery of tests on Nathan. Based on the results, he said, the center section of Nathan’s heart was not formed, and he would likely need open-heart surgery at the age of four months. During surgery, the doctor would construct the center portions of Nathan’s heart so he could oxygenate better and grow more normally.

When the cardiologist left the room, wild and unchecked ruminations entered.
What if Nathan’s heart fails and he doesn’t make it four months? What if the surgery doesn’t work? What if he gets sick and his body isn’t strong enough to fight infection? How do we raise a child with Down syndrome? What if Jessie and Ben can’t adjust to having a handicapped brother? What if …? What if …?
²

Round two of the wrestling match had begun.

Have you ever wrestled with God? Jacob did. Remember him? He lied to his blind, aged father and eventually stole his brother’s inheritance rights—the most precious thing a man could possess. The name
Jacob
means “crafty deceiver,” and Jacob tried hard to live up to his name.

Ah, but there came a night when this son of Isaac slipped through the ropes in the darkness and climbed into the ring with the angel of the Lord.

The text says that God allowed Jacob to prevail, but before He let His man up off the mat, He dislocated Jacob’s hip. Let me assure you, friend: A dislocated hip isn’t a hangnail or a
bad-hair day. It’s an extremely painful condition. And through all the years that followed, it was a constant reminder to Jacob that he was not to depend on his own strength. He was to rely entirely on God.

God loves us so much that He
will
wrestle with us. He’s not going to give us everything we want all the time. That night when Jacob was alone in the dark, he wrestled with God—and God blessed his life. In spite of Jacob’s seedy track record, in spite of his scheming, manipulative, and deceitful ways, God chose to open heaven’s great storehouses and pour His favor out upon him. (Why does that encourage me so much?) From that point on, Jacob knew that his well-being was dependent on God’s help, God’s guidance, and God’s blessing, not on his own devices. He gave up control.
³

It’s a lesson about letting God be God—a lesson that I’ll be working on every day until the Lord says it’s time for me to exit this world and follow Him home.
⁴

While we were in the hospital, the people in our church prayed for Nathan at a Wednesday evening service. That very evening his vital signs took a turn for the better. His oxygenation improved, and by morning the doctor was able to remove the IV from Nathan’s heart. Four days later, during the Sunday morning services, the congregation prayed for Nathan again. This time they prayed specifically for the healing of his heart.

Mom flew into town to help us, and on the following Tuesday, she and I took Nathan to the hospital for more tests. The cardiologist wanted to examine all the cross sections of Nathan’s heart on the ultrasound screen in order to determine how much of the heart muscle needed to be constructed.

We watched the screens intently as he focused on various chambers of the heart. When he got a clear shot of the center section, he started to shake his head and chuckle. Then in his clipped British accent, he announced happily, “By golly, the center of his heart is absolutely normal!”

I started to cry, my mom started to cry, and the doctor just kept shaking his head in amazement, muttering, “Very good, oh,
very
good.”

Then he pointed to a small hole between the upper and lower chambers of the heart, showing us on the screen where the blood was spilling through. After taking some measurements, he consulted with us in his office.

“Mrs. Vredevelt,” he said, “Nathan has two small holes in his heart. I want to watch them for the next six months and see if they will close on their own. If they do, surgery won’t be
necessary. If they don’t, we’ll need to patch them when he’s a little older.”

I cried, my mom cried, and the doctor beamed broadly, telling us how much he enjoyed giving good news. The presence of two small holes was much better news than any of us had expected. During the following six months, a host of friends around the country prayed for Nathan, and at his next appointment the cardiologist told us that the holes had closed. We no longer had to be concerned about surgery.

I left the hospital that day with a renewed awareness: God is still in the business of healing. That truth applies to baby boys with holes in their hearts and grown-up women with holes in their faith.

Either way, when we put everything in His hands, His is the touch that heals.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR