I couldn’t sleep last night.
My heart felt like it was experiencing such vastly different emotions, I didn’t know how to process them, how to even feel. I still don’t.
Over the course of less than an hour, I received news from two different friends. Both of these friends have children with brain tumors.
One is celebrating a beautifully clean MRI with no sign of new tumor growth. More time with their beautiful little girl, more memories, more cuddles, more “I love you’s”. Almost six years after the first tumor was found, they still have the joy of tucking her into bed each night. Many years that the doctors said they would not get.
The other is watching their beautiful seven year old boy as his body is fading away, but his spirit is making it’s way toward heaven. God has the power to heal this little guy, but from our earthly perspective he will soon be at Jesus’ feet, experiencing a joy and celebration that the living just cannot even comprehend.
As his body slowly stops and Rusty enters heaven, he will be given his crown of righteousness, he will see his name written in the Lambs Book of Life, “Russell Lynn Schultz”. But his mama and daddy and sister are losing their son and brother. They are experiencing grief that is all-consuming, they are feeling like their heart is physically being broken in two.
The reality of heaven seems almost palpable, so real I can almost touch it. It is not just a figure of speech or a figment of our imagination, something to comfort the living when someone you love dies.
Heaven. Is. That. Real.
My daughter lives there with Jesus. She’s going to be meeting Rusty very soon. I hope she knows how much her momma loves Rusty’s mama, and welcomes him in. I hope she shows him the ropes, all the ways of heaven.
Rusty will be healed.
And yet, so many that love him are left behind. It doesn’t make the loss of your little boy hurt any less. They are losing a piece of themselves. They will be entering a new phase of their journey in this life, a journey without the Rusty Bucket. And if she feels anything like I did, she won’t want to take this journey without her boy. She will probably want to be with her boy.
Sadly, as a momma, this is not usually God’s plan. We have loved one’s left here who need their momma, their wife, their daughter. God may slowly reveal to them why Rusty’s life was cut short, how God is using their pain for His glory, but it won’t lessen the loss or pain.
Just as in Exodus when Aaron and Hur held up Moses arms (Exodus 17)when he could no longer hold them up himself, we must do the same for Adam and Mimi.
And we will.
