Somtimes we escape reality

I'm sitting here alone this morning, while Liam is away at Mimi and Babaw's and Dustin is at work, trying to tackle my to-do list...I'm reminded to update Liam's medical history sheet I keep for him, not remembering the last time I had updated it.  I grab my medical notes in my "waiting to be filed" file and start filling in the missing entries....Currently I'm on his recent Cardiology visit and reading over the ensuing notes from his appointment....thinking to myself, sometimes we can escape reality, but it always seems to creep back in.

There's a strange comfort for me in googling his list of 13 Echo interpretations, including convoluted terms such as "right bundle branch block", "peak gradient", "right aortic arch", "aortopulmonary collateral", "interventricular sepal motion"...just to name a few...It's just something I do, cling to the hope in the dictionary term of these nouns, and it always brings me to this "reality" I call it, or be it more an "awareness" of just how complex his case really is...how every appointment, the doctor and team have to decide which of these anomolies vie for the right to create a needed intervention and which are not severe enough to be recognized.  Fear creeps in so easily when we let our worldly, dictionary reality take over...

In my quiet time this morning, God spoke to me about realizing our reality, and how important it is to remember that when we are in Christ, God and His promises ARE to become our reality...Although sometimes hidden from our eyes, just like a heart condition, the heart knows it's weak, imperfect...broken.  Sometimes the things that vie for attention with God need major surgery, while other anomalies co-exist and stem from our major weaknesses.  We sometimes know little about the long list of deficiencies that truly exist in our hearts until we let God, the Master Surgeon, open them up and carefully work to restore, rework and make new.   We trust that God brings these things to healing in His time, and not our own, and we can rest in the peace knowing He sees them.  His dictionary is far greater than ours, and His does not include the word fear.  And like gold, He continues to refine us through these broken places....our constant connection to our Creator.

"So be truly glad.  There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while.  These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world."  1 Peter 1:6-7

The parallels with Liam's heart condition is awe inspiring...how God creates this beautiful interpretation through our ordinary, world reality so we can see His work in His heavenly reality for us...Sweet comfort and inexplicable joy for our true and only reality in Christ.  That's something I hope to rest in forever...let there be no escape from the arms of our Savior.