“Are you ok?” The word that keeps running through my mind is “helpless”. “I feel helpless.”
Our youngest daughter is fifty-two days past her second bone marrow transplant. At her clinic appointment today our team told us that her numbers are concerning. Our beloved doctors are still hopeful, but my wife said they looked like they were delivering bad news. We get that--some news isn’t horrible, but that doesn’t make it good.
Hemolysis--the breakdown of red blood cells--is certainly not good. Could be her blood type converting to match her donor-sister. Could also be a drug side effect or a virus or a bacterial infection. It could also be a long-worded thing that they abbreviate to TMA. That would be very not good.
“What can I do?”
I can try to wash my hands more often, but that would be nearly impossible. The last year has been full of sanitizer and antibacterial Softsoap, and we’ve stayed sickness-free. (I spent a couple days with some friends recently and I pump the sanitizer every time I get in my car. “Is that a Maggie habit?” Yes, dear friend, a Maggie habit it is.) Unfortunately, more sanitizer won’t get rid of hemolysis.
I can keep my distance from sick people, and keep my kids out of Sunday School a bit longer. That has helped keep us able to be around Maggie regularly, not afraid we’ll pass something along to her. But that won’t beat back TMA.
I can’t adopt Maggie’s health issues as my own. (Not sure that my nearly forty-year-old and often tired system could handle it any better than hers.) Would be an easy trade for me to make, but we don’t yet have the technology.
I can’t fix it. I’m helpless. I lack the strength or power to do anything useful or to control or protect my daughter.
I may be helpless, but I am not without help.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”1
At first it might seem off. Wouldn’t it be better to remind readers that our help comes “from the Lord, who is stronger than anyone else” or “from the Lord, who’s never backed down from a fight”? Why “from the Lord, who made heaven and earth”?
I love Matthew Henry’s answer: “We must encourage our confidence in God with this that he made heaven and earth, and he who did that can do any thing.”2
He can do any thing. He will not let your foot be moved. He will not slumber or sleep. He keeps you. He shades you. He keeps you from all evil. He keeps your life. He keeps your going out. He keeps your going in. And He does it forever.
In our deep valley we look up to the hills, straining our necks for the help of the Lord. And we remember that on a hill a long time ago, the Son of God was made helpless so that we would never be without help.
The Lord has shown His intention to keep me (and my family and Maggie and you, Christian) by sending His Son to live and die and live again. All of God’s promises to us are yes in Jesus. So much so that George Swinnock rightly writes, “We must esteem His words as good as deeds and rely on all His promises as if it were already performed.”3
I may be helpless, but we are not without help. Maggie may have that long-worded issue that I can’t pronounce. She may need more medical intervention. She may get sicker still.
And we will keep our eyes fixed on the Lord’s hill.
Our help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 121:1-2, ESV
Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible
in The Incomparableness of God