Kidney Beans

As a child, fairy tales captured my imagination in a way only fantastical stories can. The magic, the deceptively deep characters, the hidden stories telling of the culture they were written in, the happily ever afters. Or in Grimms case, the dark and foreboding warnings.

One of the main tales growing up that never seemed to click with me was Jack and the Beanstalk. As an adult looking back, I can’t say much has changed. I mean, who comes up with this stuff? A poor kid from the backwaters of Nobodysville doesn’t obey his mother’s orders, comes home with a handful of beans, climbs a magical vine grown from said beans, steals something of value from up there, wins a massive race, and kills a giant. And proceeds to live happily ever after. Boy. It’s just a real whirlwind of a ride.

Well, this month has been a whirlwind and I’m in need of a fairytale ending. And preferably not Grimms style.

Our spunky little gal, Minna May, has suddenly shown very alarming signs of kidney distress. Not gonna lie, as trusting of God as I am, the fingertips of my mind did brush upon preparations of great and unbearable loss. And then they dropped back down to the best case scenario. And now they’ve lurched forward into no man’s land, where no one seems to have a clue what’s going on.

Let me set out the facts for you all. As of right now, no one knows exactly what is wrong, except that something is not good with her kidneys, something is bleeding when it shouldn’t be, and more testing is necessary to narrow down the options. She has a cyst inside her left kidney, a pretty big one. But no one seems to know what’s causing the bleeding that is slowly making its way out of her body. Thankfully, Minna is still in high spirits, has no pain, and is showing no signs of fatigue from losing blood. But there are more questions that need answering before we get to confidently move forward. On top of all this, we’re doing this in a country whose health system we don’t fully understand, but gratefully it’s been top-notch.

Needless to say, the highs and lows of these past few days have left me gasping for breath.

I’ve kept it together, cried in a heap on the floor, pleaded with God to show some sort of mercy, talked through the possibilities with my husband, cried again walking home, prayed with friends and family, and fallen into a crying puddle on the floor while attempting to hang washing. It’s been a wild ride.

But one thing is keeping me sane.

I wouldn’t have anything concrete to stand on if I didn’t truly believe that there is a God above all, who loves this kid more than me, and who can absolutely be trusted, no matter the result. I am putting my trust in that God, most of the time. But the mind-numbing part is that it has to be the sort of trust that can’t be reliant on the outcome. Because (and I’m about to step onto fragile ground here) God doesn’t always choose to miraculously heal the kids, sometimes the surgeons can’t do the work. It’s one of the biggest reasons that people today choose not to believe in a God. “How could a god let this happen to kids?” I hear them say quite often.

I’ve never had an answer that could satisfy the depth of those questions, mainly because I’ve had the same questions. But the thing about my God is that contradictory to all other god stories, my God stepped down into the suffering and the mess in order to forge hope in the hopelessness.

I’m trusting in the God who gave up his son for my daughter. That’s literally all I have to stand on. At the end of his story, it was life, not death, that won out.

We have a family of believers praying and interceding on our behalf. On her behalf. And when my faith wanes, it’s that community that stands in the gap holding us up. We’re praying for her health, but we’re also believing that no matter what, he is good.

Minna’s little kidney seeds are the start of a great and frightening adventure, for both her and us as her parents. It’s a challenging journey, where great obstacles are faced and a giant will need to come hurtling down.

But I know, in my bones, she’s going to be ok.