Lessons From Leukemia

Lessons From Leukemia: That’s the Plan On the evening of October 24th, Pippa and I had plans to celebrate her birthday early by attending an Amy Grant concert in Naperville. As we said, “Goodbye,” and prepared to go, Hudson, who relishes the security of knowing that we are all together, asked, “Can we stay up until you get home?” Our answer, as it had been many times before, was, “No. We might be late and you need to get to sleep. We will see you in the morning.” I saw him in the morning. The next time Hudson saw his mother was almost a week later; she was in a hospital bed, and she had leukemia. After a successful regimen of chemotherapy sent Pippa’s cancer into remission, she was able to stay at home while waiting for a bone marrow transplant. In December, the Moody Bible Institute Music Department sent us tickets for their annual “Candlelight Carols” concert, so we decided to go. As we prepared to leave for Chicago, we once again said, “Goodbye,” and once again, Hudson, who has always been deeply contemplative and inquisitive, asked another question. He said, “Are you both coming back this time?” His question hit me like a blow to the chest, and in the awkward silence that followed I struggled to find both my breath and an answer. The shock, fear, pain, anxiety, confusion, anger, uncertainty, helplessness and hopelessness of the past 2 months flooded my heart and mind. Drowning in my thoughts, I did not know what to say. I looked at my wife and Cancer whispered into my ear, “You can’t guarantee anything.” Hudson stared into me with his mother’s brown eyes and waited for my answer. At the innocent age of ten, the fear in his eyes told me that he too had heard the whisper. As his father I desperately wanted to say, “Yes,” and make him feel safe and secure; however, if something did happen again, my credibility and his trust would be gone. So, I said the only thing that an earthly father can say. I said, “That’s the plan.” Yes, we have every intention of going out and coming back; but life is scary at worst and precarious at best and there are no guarantees. The only thing, the best thing, we can do for ourselves, and for our children, is to remember what our Heavenly Father has said in his Word. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39) No matter what happens, there are two things of which we can be blessedly assured: Our eternal security through faith in Christ and His abiding presence with us through the Holy Spirit. To rest in that truth with the trust of a child, “That’s the Plan.” And although, through all of this, some of his innocence has been lost, Hudson reclaimed the simplicity of youth when a few days later, in anticipation of Pippa’s bone marrow transplant, he asked yet another question, “So, is that bow and arrow transplant going to fix Mommy?” To which I replied, “That’s the plan.”