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May 27, 2005
May 26th
Tomorrow morning between 11 am and 11:30 am, Dr Kerns (neurosurgen), will be operating on Asher's C5 vertebrae, which is in his neck. they will be going in from the front side of his neck between his carotid artery and his wind pipe. he will be assessing the injury as well as removing bone fragments, and finally fusing the vertebrae together with plates and screws.
after all asher has been through, it is excruciating to give consent to operate. even though i know that this has to be done, as well as many more operations, i still want to spare asher from everything i can. and what makes this so hard is that there is nothing i can spare him from that is out in front of him right now.
when we got the news about the severity of his spinal cord injuries everything immediately was reduced for me to a very finite picture for what was taking place. what i mean was that all i could think of was asher and us, and us and asher. there was nothing else in the picture at all. nothing else seemed relevant except for us.
after i went home that night and cried and cried and tried to pray and to get God to heal my son, i fell asleep and woke up the next morning feeling like i was standing back down at the foot of mt everest and had to start climbing back up all over again. before i went to bed that night, though, i had climbed back up to the top, but instead of looking down at my feet, like i had been for most of the day, i was suddenly looking out over a great expanse and i realized that everything that is happening to us is somehow fitting into this great expanse. God has a much greater purpose and, for whatever the reason, this horrible and excruciating pain that we are all in is helping us all to reach the mountain top so that we can all share in our understanding for this great expanse that God wants us to behold.
how many times we have to wake up and walk back up mt everest in order for this to be accomplished only He knows, and the only thing that me and my family know is that we can't make this walk up this mountain that God seems intent on having us climb everyday, right now, without your prayers. Right now it is taking every bit of prayer being offered up just to take this first step every moring and I suspect that tomorrow morning may be the hardest first step we've had to take so far. so thank you for your prayers. keep praying them, please, so that all of us that God has brought together through this unthinkable tragedy can also one day rejoice together as God's will is revealed to us. When one member sufferes we all suffer and when one member is honored we will all also be honored.
one of the greatest and most unexpected blessings that God has brought to me personally is knowing my son this week in ways that I had never known and understood him before. many of the conflicts we have had over the years, and even in very recent days and weeks, have been, in many ways, because there are sides to Asher that I had not seen. it is very difficult, if not almost impossible for a parent to know a child in the ways that his friends know and appreciate him, which doesn't take too much to figure out why this is the case, or even why that should be the case. The only reason i know this is that because of this horrible tragedy my family and i have been constantly surrounded by alot of asher's close friends. they are often the first ones there when we get to the hospital's ICU waiting room in the mornings and they are usually the last ones there when we leave. They have all cried over asher as well as cried out to God for him, and in the midst of their own pain and confusion and overwhelming desire to be who asher needs them to be, they are revealing to me, without intending to, or even knowing, many of the sides of asher that i have never known before, and at the same time showing me sides of Jesus that I have never known before either. and it is just almost more than i can even bare when i realize that by reducing Jesus down to the 2 dimensional figure that we often do, that it doesn't make room for many of those in our society who don't measure up to our narrow image of Jesus, and the result is that it also narrows our image of others. even those we love the most like our own sons and daughters.
how horrifying to think that i am guilty of limiting my love and acceptance of my own son, because I have, in effect, first limited my own love and acceptance of Jesus. what i mean by that is that my son's friends and acquaintances are not who the church typically would seek out to find Jesus among, and yet that is where Jesus has most revealed himself to us as we have desperately struggled through this week, and i am more greatful for this than i can ever even hope to be able to express to you. just please remember i am writing this to you tonight after struggling all day to get back up to the mountain top in order to take in God's bigger view in all of this. if i had waited until the morning to write it i am afraid that i would be as i was looking down at my feet again just trying to take those first few steps to get started back up the mountain.
Lord bless you all. your prayers are sustaining us in ways that i can't even express, but more importantly they are also helping us to keep our eyes on God's greater purposes. i would not have asked for this for a million years, and i am even now asking God to take it away, because it is just too hard and i still can't even begin to see how we are going to make it into next week when we can't even stay up on the top of the mountain for more than one day. and i know the spiritual thing to say right now would be Lord if this cup can be taken from us please, but not our will Lord, let your will be done. but i am not Jesus. i have not sent my son to suffer like he is now, and i can't stand it, and i would trade places with him if there was any way i could. the only thing i am getting any comfort from at all right now is that, unlike me, Jesus was able to trade places with us, and He chose to do it, not only for me, but my son too, and it has been through all of Asher's friends that He has been reminding me of this.
still hurting,
andy mendonsa
p.s. a blog has been set up for updates as well as comments you may feel let to post. the web address for the "Asher Update" is: http://asher.chattablogs.com/. i will be posting other comments and updates concerning Asher there instead of sending them out as newsletters.
| By Leda | 08:26 AM
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Comments
I just want you to know that I love you and will continue to pray for your whole family.
Posted by: David at May 28, 2005 10:34 PM
