{"id":3279,"date":"2017-03-08T23:15:17","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T06:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/?p=3279"},"modified":"2017-03-08T23:20:30","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T06:20:30","slug":"trembling-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/trembling-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"Trembling Hands"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\n A Jon Post<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n For the second time in as many days I\u2019ve held trembling hands in mine and given the news that all is not well.<\/p>\n Fingernails scratched against the concrete walls of cancer while her tears stained her face and I sat with an x-ray in my hand.<\/p>\n X-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans and scribbled doctors notes on paper all telling us that pain will only increase and rest will only flee frail bodies.<\/p>\n There I sat with an x-ray in one hand and her trembling hand in the other.<\/p>\n Last night a different hand but equally as precious lay limp in mine as I repeated the CT scan results about a 6 centimeter tumor eating at liver tissue and causing the growing pain in her abdomen. A cancer that grew with a placenta and a new life inside a swollen mothers belly took the life of that baby months ago and now gnaws at the mother\u2019s liver splashing malignant cells around her body like dirty grey paint.<\/p>\n And her limp hand sat in mine while I pleaded internally with a silent God to give words where mine failed.<\/p>\n I heard none.<\/p>\n An ironic smile appeared on this orphaned-of-her-child mother\u2019s face and she acknowledged the inability in our lungs and vocal cords to blow or shout against this cold wind that cannot be warded off with blankets and grows equally difficult to guard against with chemotherapeutic treatments.<\/p>\n Prayers fell in Portuguese like wounded sparrows from my lips and fell, splat, splat, splat, on this chipped tile floor in front of the bed we sat on.<\/p>\n This silent God once promised He cares for those sparrows and that not one of them falls to the ground unless He knows about it<\/a>.<\/p>\n Maybe he caught the ones that fell last night but didn\u2019t tell me.<\/p>\n The dark glass that we see through<\/a> seemed especially dark last night as I hurled my prayers against it and succeeded in shattering only the glass yet not the darkness.<\/p>\n My wife picked up the pieces of this broken window of prayer and held them tight while finishing the plea to a Savior who weeps<\/a>. I watched in silence marveling that, though so little light pierced through the hole where the glass once hung, how brightly shone that broken glass in the hands of a broken person.<\/p>\n We waited for I do not know what, sat and looked into frightened eyes, then put our children to sleep.<\/p>\n