This morning, I posted something fairly passionate on Facebook after receiving very disappointing (although not unexpected) news from our insurance company. After four attempts — months-long, tough and exhausting battles — to get coverage for very expensive, but necessary supplies for our kids, we received a final denial. That Facebook post is at the end of this short blog post if you want to read it.
I still believe I do need to speak and fight for my babies and bring wrongs into the light when I’m given an opportunity to do that. Our children spent enough years in orphanages, wearing soiled diapers with no one to fight for their needs before they came home, so I will always fight my heart out for them. But God is bigger than insurance companies; and His plans, full of love, are always better than the plans we devise for ourselves (or even for our babies). So I need to follow up on that post with this.
I read (and shared) a blog post this past week from the mom of a child with significant special needs who was really struggling. She wrote that, during an emotional conversation with her child’s neurologist, the doctor kindly stopped her at one point and addressed what she was saying to him. This is from her blog:
“Okay, how about this — you stop saying ‘this is good or this is bad’ and you just accept what it is that’s going on.” He continued by saying, “When the hurricane hit Texas everyone was ready for it to stop; no one wanted another hurricane to hit Florida, but you know what? It did. This is what Chase’s seizures are like. They come and then we find something that stops them for a while, and then when that stops working we find something else. When a hurricane comes the only thing you can do about it is pick yourself up and start with what you have.”
Our faith in a loving and sovereign God should equip us to do this very thing. We can cry for a little while, but then we have to pick ourselves up and start with what we have. We can trust Him with whatever comes our way — good or bad. Scott and I know that He will guide us through the black and swirling waters we find ourselves in now.
Susannah Surgeon, once more, brought perspective back into my heart this morning with her words from 1898. This is truth! This is where we have to keep our focus:
“‘I will strengthen you — yes, I will help you!’ Who will come with me to the King this morning, to lay at His feet a petition for the fulfillment of this Word of His grace, upon which He has caused us to hope? We shall be a company of Feeble-minds, and Much-afraids, and Fearings, and Ready-to-halts, and we may make but a sorry appearance in His courts. Some of us can say, with tear-filled eyes, ‘O Lord, if weakness is a plea for Your promised strength, then are we truly fit objects of Your mercy, for we are at the lowest ebb of helplessness; we have scarcely strength enough left to feel that we are feeble.’ Oh, the condescension and tenderness of our God! Our extremity is His opportunity! His mercy follows hard after our misery. And, oh! with what joyful hearts and shining eyes do we afterwards walk in the light of His countenance! ‘Dear Lord,’ we say, “it is worthwhile being weak to be thus gloriously strengthened by You!'”
“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.'” Isaiah 41:13
Scott and I will always fight for our kids and their needs. But when we reach the end of all human ability to change the situation, we must fall back on the sovereignty of our God who knows our (and our children’s) needs better than we do.
Here is that Facebook post from this morning about the evils and unfairness and injustice of Humana’s very wrong decision. And one thing I want to say about this post. In spite of some of the comments on Facebook about this, it was never intended to be a political statement. I don’t actually believe that this is a problem that can be laid at the feet of either political party. We, and many others, have fought similar battles with insurance under every type of healthcare out there, regardless of which party was driving the train. I don’t actually know what the answers are for our huge healthcare problems in this country. But I know that the picture truly is much bigger than just which party is in control.
We can find peace in knowing that, while some may believe that parties or companies hold all of the power, God is ultimately in control of the outcomes of our lives. And He loves us incomprehensibly.
Facebook Post, October 24, 2017:
To the person at Humana who has the power to make decisions concerning the quality of people’s lives, my heart longs, this morning, for the ability to strike you with total bowel incontinence for a few weeks. Not so much out of anger or spite, but in a very real desire to open your eyes and your heart to the consequences of your decisions. I wish I could arrange things so that you would, multiple times throughout your day, leak liquidy, smelly stool through your diapers (which others your age don’t even wear) onto your clothes and the furniture on which you are sitting while you are trying to attend church, watch a concert or movie with your family, or play in the backyard with siblings and friends. I wish I could then present you with a solution that finally fulfills your dreams of wearing real underwear like others your age, and works well to mostly keep you free of foul smells and embarrassing public soiling of your clothes and skin irritation caused by the constant leaks — only to, then, cruelly snatch that solution away, saying to you, as you said to my babies, “there are no published guidelines recommending this treatment for your incontinence.” Would you beg for mercy? Would you fight through multiple appeals as we have, searching for someone who will listen to reason; begging for someone who actually cares (and holds all of the cards) to come to your aid? Would you then, finally, weep for the pain you have caused others?
Here are their faces. They are real people whose little hearts ache for the same things you want for yourself or your own children. How does a heart become so hard and cold that the bottom line is what decides the length and/or quality of a life?
Owning My Nothingness 