Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Romans 9:20 (KJV)
“Brother and Sister”, Bunbury, Western Australia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you are committed to living an authentically Christian life, you can’t argue with the sovereignty of God. It’s one of the those eternally immutable things. There are times though, when you struggle with understanding God’s sovereignty. There were times when I wondered why God does things the way He does. You see, I have a brother whom I love dearly, who is handicapped. Right now, he is fighting for his life. Yet the very things that are working together to end his life come from how he was made.
My brother was born with hydrocephalus, a condition where the cerebrospinal fluid is blocked and pressure builds up inside the brain. A child’s skull is not rigid, so the head increases in size. People refer to this condition as “water on the brain.” When my brother was 18 months old, he tripped and fell backwards. The blow to his head caused a cerebral hemorrhage. The resulting coma lasted a very long time. The injury to his brain charted a lifelong battle against grand mal seizures. When my brother woke up, my family embarked upon what would become a lifelong commitment to his recovery and safety.
He was 9 years old before he could walk again with the aid of a brace. His speech and ability to learn were limited. He stood out in a crowd mostly because of the size of his head, a noticeable limp, and the fact that my mother was always at his side. We grew up in the deep South during the 50s and 60s, so there was no shortage of staring at my brother and whispered condemnations as to why my Mom insisted on being seen in public with him. My mother is a God-fearing woman who insisted on giving every ounce of love to all her children. My brother was the only child who was unable to leave home, and my mother insisted that he accompany her on every summer vacation, and every day for 31 years he accompanied Mom to her job at the local Pre-K where she taught. The owner of the school made my brother the honorary Principal.
As the years passed, my brother maintained his dignity, helping my Mom clean up her classroom at the end of the day. He wore the suits and ties he liked, and refused to wear his brace to church on Sundays, where he sang off-key during his favorite songs. He always tried to do his best with limited cognition and physical capabilities, and even pushed back at our father’s persistent insensitivities.
When my brother was up and about, carefree, seizure free, and able to slap his knee while laughing out loud, it was easy to see how blessed he was. How blessed we all were. But as we grew older reaching our 5th and 6th decades, his nervous system started to give out. A series of spontaneous intracranial hemorrhages, and finally a stroke, left my brother bed-bound and unable to talk. For a while he struggled mightily, speaking with his eyes, and somehow continuing to bring joy to all who cared for him. A long turn on the ventilator during one particularly severe setback left my brother with a tracheostomy. It was at that point that he was admitted to a nursing home. My parents, siblings, and I grieved mightily that we could no longer care for him in the home we all grew up in.
Despite excellent care from the nursing home (no bedsores), my brother has continued to lose ground. The right side of his body is twisted in contractures, and we wonder at the level of his discomfort. He struggles to stay awake when we visit. More and more he sleeps, and he is now in hospice care. Looking at his tortured body, I later asked God, “Why?” My brother has the purest heart. I know he loves the Lord, cause he told me so. He carried his Bible with him wherever he went in the house. Sat with it in his lap all day, everyday. Its pages were so worn you’d never know that he could not read. Yes “God is in” his heart, as he once told me. One day I asked him if he knew what the Bible said. He looked up at the sky and thought for a moment, then he looked me in my eyes and said slowly “Bible say love everybody!” That was a moment of sheer delight.
I grieve not hearing my brother’s laugh. I grieve seeing him pass through sickness after sickness, and serial hospitalizations, with numerous blood drawings and intravenous lines that he so feared and despised. I looked at him in his hospital bed and asked God “Why?” Slowly, I have come to accept that some things belong to God alone. Some reasons are His alone to know. Truly, I don’t have a right to ask God why He has “made me thus,” much less why he has made my brother thus. Instead I count the many things that have happened because of my brother’s life. Being his sister inspired me to finish medical school and practice medicine for many years. I closed my practice so that I could come home and journey with him and my parents into whatever future God had planned. My sister spent a life time working with severely handicapped people whom she taught practical skills like how to count money and how to use a computer. My oldest brother came to know the power of God and the need to pray to Him.
It’s been a long journey, but I have come to the conclusion that on this Earth sometimes the best we can do is see through a glass darkly. We anticipate the days in Heaven when face-to-face “we shall know even as also we are known.” I repent asking God “Why?” he made my brother thus. I accept my place and his as things that God has made. That’s enough. God’s grace is sufficient. Let every knee bow.
Until we meet again: “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might!” (Ephesians 6:10).
– Verneda
(Twitter handle: @vlights)
Continue the conversation on Facebook!
© 2013 Verneda Lights. All rights reserved.
