{"id":2713,"date":"2015-09-05T10:22:40","date_gmt":"2015-09-05T17:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/?p=2713"},"modified":"2015-09-05T10:46:19","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T17:46:19","slug":"there-is-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/there-is-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"I am a Son of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Jon Post<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Luis, father of 4 sits in my back yard reading a paperback New Testament. My children laugh, play, fight and scream nearby, all at once asking for independence and constant attention. My wife stands in the kitchen preparing a meal for our hungry children and her goofy, bearded husband. I\u2019m sitting with my back against Casa Ahav\u00e1\u2019s wall next to Luis, watching my daughters bounce from dog to toy to treehouse to slide to ground.<\/p>\n

\"Smile\"<\/a>

Smile<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhat have you been reading in there, Luis?\u201d I ask, trying to be as respectful as possible.<\/p>\n

And a conversation centered around a scripture in the Epistle of First John begins.<\/p>\n

The afternoon draws on, the mosquitos come out, the dusk draws the curtains of sunlight down and my kids have been called into the kitchen where my wife has finished dinner prep. God\u2019s gift of abundant grace enables her to recognize the import and urgency of the moment and she selflessly gathers all four children to the dinner table, leaving Luis and me to watch the sun\u2019s droopy eyes close over another day as we talk about the right to be called God\u2019s children<\/a>, not just His creation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you think it takes to be called God\u2019s son, Luis?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, Jon.\u201d<\/p>\n

So we talk more, the sun finally falls asleep and the stars wake up and still we talk.<\/p>\n

Then a whispered prayer, an urgent voice, and a resounding chorus of angels rejoice as Luis and I look at each other. \u201cYou have the right to be called a son of God now, Luis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, brother Jon.\u201d He replies, \u201cYes, I am God\u2019s son now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luis had a tumor pressing on his esophagus at the beginning of the year. He noticed the discomfort, went to a provincial hospital, had an x-ray, and a surgeon scheduled him for a surgery that was never explained to him nor was he asked if he\u2019d like to proceed. He trusted the fledgling health system here in Mozambique and went under the knife.<\/p>\n

4 months later I found myself sitting with the head oncologist who looked at Luis\u2019 patient history and a current x-ray of his esophagus. The tumor, barely touched in the surgery, had grown and closed a badly mangled esophagus that had been stretched to (needlessly) bypass his stomach. In every sense of the phrase except literal, Luis had been butchered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis cannot be fixed, Jon\u201d, said the oncologist. \u201cWe can only give so many chemotherapy treatments, but we can\u2019t fix this.\u201d He gestured in futility at the patient file on his desk.<\/p>\n

Some weeks later, Luis and I talked about his prognosis. We used some awful words;<\/p>\n

Terminal<\/p>\n

Palliative<\/p>\n

Cancer<\/p>\n

Death<\/p>\n

And we used some wonderful ones;<\/p>\n

\"Care\"<\/a>

Care<\/p><\/div>\n

Family<\/p>\n

Hope<\/p>\n

God<\/p>\n

Life<\/p>\n

Now Luis lives with a tube inserted into his upper intestine where he injects liquefied food with a large syringe in order to stay alive. He cannot swallow, he cannot go anywhere without a small tupperware container to put his saliva in, he never tastes food.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve never seen him go for 10 minutes without smiling.<\/p>\n

You\u2026 Yes you, supporter\/prayer-partner\/curious reader\u2026 You would be so proud to see the way Luis cares for his roommate who is blind in one eye and in consistent pain. He cooks for him, cleans the room alone, holds his hand to walk him across a dangerous road, gently and graciously teaches him the game of checkers, and never once complains about his own pain or discomfort.<\/p>\n

You\u2026 yes YOU, reading this right now\u2026 If you consider yourself a child of God\u2026 you can be extremely proud of your brother, Luis. He will probably make it home to his Father before you do, and you will probably not meet him until you get there too\u2026<\/p>\n

But be proud of your brother, Luis.<\/p>\n

\"Sons<\/a>

Sons of God<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Jon Post Luis, father of 4 sits in my back yard reading a paperback New Testament. My children laugh, play, fight and scream nearby, all at once asking for independence and constant attention. My wife stands in the kitchen preparing a meal for our hungry children and her goofy, bearded husband. I\u2019m sitting with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2713"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2725,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions\/2725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}