"...one must take 'sent to try us' the right way. God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to fnd out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down." From A Grief Observed
Such a great analogy, I must claim it for my own. My/our walk with Ryan's brain injury has been a house of cards. When he was a toddler and preschooler I had built up this card tower of expectations and hopes for his life. In one week, eight years ago, that tower fell when he suffered his stroke. For months we carefully restacked the cards through care and therapy. After several levels were standing again, a wind came by and blew down a tier or two when we were given the seizure diagnosis almost two years to the day after the original injury occurred. The next steps were the harder to build yet and another level blew down five years in when we were told he had dyslexia. This level was one of the easier to rebuild in a way, but took a year of intensive reading therapy and learning some adaptive skils. A gentle breeze still wafts through every few months as we go from seizure free periods to having seizures again. Just two and a half weeks ago I lost a few cards as we discovered he was having new auras he hadn't experinced previously and in conjunction with heightened seizure activity. We're still replacing those cards as we try to get a grip on solving the latest relapse.
I think what Lewis's analogy doesn't fully carry out, perhaps because he is grieving death, is the importance of the rebuilding. Each time I pick up a card, or group of cards, and add a level or replace one that has been blown down, I am growing; Ryan is growing. I get frustrated, and yes even curse at times, when our hard work is destroyed. Then I realize that the foundations have at least remained strong for years. Our family loves each other and walks this road together. Our friends respond with prayer and practical help as the needs arise. In the end, and even now, Ryan is learning how to deal with difficulties in life and how to function in spite of them. My latest mantra has been, "I've seen the kids who go their whole young lives without hardship, and do you know what happens what the slightest difficulty arises? They can't cope." Ryan will be able to cope with the smaller inconveniences of life, and many of the bigger ones, because he has had to struggle since age five.
Do you have a house of cards? I think most of us do. I think for many of us it is our faith, but it might be something more tangible than that. What do you do when the cards fall? Do you brush them all off the table and give up? Or do you begin the ofttimes slow process of rebuilding? When the breezes blow, do you become anxious wondering if your tower will stand? Sometimes a part is meant to come down, sometimes the whole house collaspses. The important thing is that we build again.
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