Sherry’s back from Kansas City, Children’s Mercy Hospital and the recently expanded Breshears family. Her involvement was in lots of different ways. She chased Susan upstairs to rest and did the dish washing herself. She was coach to Donn and Susan when Susan was wrestling with the emotions of a severely ill daugter she’d not held at all and touched only once briefly as she was inside the incubator heading to the other hospital. “Just hold her” and “Tears are good, let them come” sounds trite here, but it was profound in the moment. Her time in the hospital touched deep emotionally. No surprise, I suppose. The noise of the place with ventilator going, forcing breaths a couple of times per second, the lines going into Elizabeth everywhere combined with the beauty of this completely unexpected little grace gift speak to the deepest places, places only those who are the very closest could ever share. I wondered at the picture of Donn and Susan wondering at their daughter, and especially at his wedding ringed hand reaching to her tiny one.

She went on rounds this morning and heard the doctors speaking all sorts of medical speak. It boiled down to continued reduction of anti-anxiety medications, termination of the dopamine, possible change from the high powered respirator to a “normal” one with even that being removed early next week. The contamination in her lungs continues to disperse and her blood gasses are OK even as the percentage of oxygen enrichment is reduced. The flow to her cells is enhanced by transfusions of blood. I’m designating all my donations to her! It’s a very delicate balance to maintain. It’s possible that Elizabeth will be out of the hospital when we get there on November 30.

I was thinking how wonderful it is to have the level of trust Sherry and I enjoy as I was doing some counseling this week. I’m dealing with some marriage situations where trust has been blown by infidelity, addictions and stupidty. Of course it’s not always this sort of thing. Sometimes it’s just misperceptions and misunderstandings that somehow lodge into the thinking structures of ones mind. Seeing the impact of blown trust in terms of ruined relationship is so hard to see. But I’ve seen a couple of them being restored. That gives me hope for restoration, but the work required to do that is so painfully difficult. Probably the hardest is the persistence in honesty, consistency, and working on personal stuff. The pain is deep and the loss is great. It can be pretty discouraging sometimes. People miss each other more than they can say. The prayer required is something friends can join in, especially if their love is deep. Sharing the work of restoration is a privilege of sharing the sufferings of Christ. And the outcome is a gift of grace no less than Elizabeth is.

We head off to Cannon Beach this weekend where I’ll teach at the Salem Community Retreat, something I’ve done for more than a decade. It’s a small group we know well, so it’s a relaxing time for us in a place we love . . . and with a couple of grand girls we love too!