Helpless, but Not Hopeless

I’ve always been a proactive person, long before Steven Covey told me to be.  From the time I was a kid working on merit badges in my bedroom until now, I’ve always liked to be ahead of what’s required of me, whether it be in school, work, my family life, or whatever.  So, to call myself “helpless” chafes my ego something awful.  In fact, if another person called me “helpless,” then we would undoubtedly have words and I would offer myriad reasons why I am, in fact, not.

But, when you drill down to the core of our being, “helpless” is exactly what we are.

I’ve never felt it so much as when my sweet Abrie was born.  She was born three weeks early and had trouble nursing.  She would not gain weight and actually lost over 10 percent of her birth weight.  The first week of her life was a roller coaster that I never want to ride on again.  We went back and forth to the pediatrician, each time praying and hoping that she had gained a few ounces, only to be devastated when she weighed less than the time before.  We tried everything, but nothing worked.  I could not will her to gain weight.  Despite my best efforts, I was utterly helpless.  At the same time, Emmy got sick with a fever and I got the first indication that something was wrong with my bone marrow.  All I could do was pray and hope. 

Today Abrie is healthy with some chubby little legs.  We had her tongue clipped and she immediately started nursing better.  But, the lesson I learned in faith is still pretty vivid.

And so it is here, now, with this cancer.  I am being proactive by walking 2-3 miles each day, exercising with my massive 10 pound dumbbells, making myself eat when I don’t feel like it, and generally doing what the doctors tell me.  All this helps with my recovery, but it does nothing to make the leukemia respond to the chemotherapy.  It does nothing to keep the cancer in remission once it gets there.  It does nothing to help my body accept the new stem cells that I’ll receive during the transplant.  And all my best efforts will do nothing to keep the cancer from returning after the transplant.  I am completely helpless in this area.

But, according to Paul, this is exactly the way it should be.  Christ’s power is made perfect in our weakness.  If we could fix ourselves, then we would have no need for a Savior.  In my helplessness, I have no choice but to allow Jesus Christ to work in me.  I have to trust Him to heal me.  I have to trust Him to keep my wife and daughters safe and healthy. 

We have no guarantees in this world.  We like to think that we do.  I sure did, and still do at times.  The truth is that we are not even promised tomorrow.  We can and should be proactive and responsible for our lives, but with the knowledge and reassurance that the Creator who made us holds each of us in the palm of his hand.  Not a sparrow will fall from the sky and not a single cancer cell will assault my body apart from His will.  In our helplessness we are strong because of Him.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12: 9-12 NIV)