Making Wishes

The voice on the phone is bright and cheerful, exactly what I need today.  “I have some great news for you,” she declares.

I could use some great news right about now.  My son has been struggling with complicated health issues for a long, long time, and every time the phone rings, it seems to bring more bad news.  The recent lab work doesn’t look good.  No improvement in the numbers.  The new medication doesn’t seem to be working.  The medical team is deciding what steps to take. 

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, wishes came true.  Miracles happened.  Prayers were answered in the most amazing ways.  A precious baby boy lay in a hospital room, alone, fighting for his life, and against impossible odds, in spite of the doctors’ decision to “make him as comfortable as possible until the end,” he made it!  He was given a chance to thrive!

But here’s the thing about caring for a child with fragile health:  not all wishes come true.  Not all stories end with “happily ever after.”  Sometimes prayers are answered, not with miracles, but with silence.  The medical complications are not easily resolved, there are no specific “praises” that can be e-mailed to the church prayer chain.  He was born with significant health issues, and seven years later, guess what?  He still has significant health issues.  Seven years later we are still praying.  Still waiting for him to be healed. 

Family Picture

The fact that we are taking our family’s Christmas picture two days after Christmas and sending out a letter in mid-January is evidence of the insanity that sometimes defines our family.  Always running late, frequently missing important deadlines, doing the best we can to keep up with the daily demands of each individual that lives under our roof.

After corralling everyone onto the front porch, rearranging a mis-buttoned shirt here, straightening some flyaway hair there, and adjusting the settings on the camera, we are finally ready.  Smile, everyone!  The picture, after all of the fuss, actually turns out pretty nice.  The image is exactly what we hope to portray:  a beautiful, “perfect” family.  Loving, kind, affectionate, calm, peaceful.  Joy on every face.

The picture does not, however, depict the whole story.  The story of what our family is really like behind the lens:  constant messes, frequent drama, occasional yelling, people running here and there, sibling rivalry erupting at the most inopportune times, tantrums from the little ones (and sometimes the big ones too!), the perpetual struggle for patience, the inevitable exhaustion. 

The picture also doesn’t reveal the whole story in all of its beauty.  The remarkable truth that underlying all of the noise and chaos, there is a sense of design and purpose.  We see glimpses of compassion, hope, sacrifice, friendship, and true, unconditional love.  There is the expanding and maturing and the building of inner character that happen in sudden, unexpected ways, so imperceptible in their growth that, if we are not purposefully looking for them, we may miss them altogether.

Becoming Beautiful

There is nothing immediately noticeable about her that distinguishes her from most young ladies her age.  She is not exactly lovely, but her milky-white skin is free of blemishes; her sparkly, slightly mischievous blue eyes are framed by eyelashes that could use a little accentuating; and her long dark hair rebelliously escapes from the styles that try to contain it.  She spends carefree summer afternoons alternating between giggling with her best friend about the stylish new dress in the window at the village shop, and exploring the small woods near her home, imagining that she is on a quest to find a hidden treasure.  A perfect combination of feminine daydreams and tomboy amusement. 

She has heard the legendary tale, of course, of a girl named Cinderella, an ordinary girl like herself whose mundane, predictable life was turned upside down when the prince chose her above every other maiden in the kingdom.  How she longed to be beautiful like that!  To have the prince search tirelessly until he found her, and then whisk her off to the palace on his white horse for a perfect, story-book ending.

Oh, how she dreams of the future!  She can only imagine what an exciting life awaits her “out there,” away from this provincial village that hasn’t changed in centuries.  She longs for a life of adventure, to travel to far-off countries with exotic sights and strange-smelling food.  To do something important!  She wants to experience the world, to become someone whom other people would describe as interesting and confident and brave.

One chilly autumn day, the young woman strolls down the path on her way to town, daydreaming and anticipating the annual Fall Festival that is being planned.  Hard-working farmers and jovial shop-keepers and skilled tradesmen from the surrounding countryside will all be coming together in a few short days to celebrate this year’s bountiful harvest.  She knows she will be meeting a lot of different people, and she wonders what she should wear and tries to imagine how her hair would look in a cute new style that she had heard was becoming popular in the bigger towns.