I Don’t Know

I don’t know. Can we begin to count the times that is the only answer we can give?  We crave the certainty that so frequently eludes us.  Paula just recently described some of the challenges that may come during seasons of uncertainty.

We take in oodles of information constantly, yet there is still abundantly more that we don’t know and much we may never know.  We accept that truth for the most part; we understand that we can’t possibly know everything.  But, at times, it can be agonizing not to know.

Recently, I spent time reading through entries I wrote on Anna’s CaringBridge page years ago.  It struck me how often I wrote about what I didn’t know.

…We don’t know the diagnosis or the best treatment plan…I don’t know why she has a fever…We don’t know what the CT will show…We don’t know how long we’ll be in the ICU…I don’t know how long this hospital stay will be…We don’t know if this treatment will be effective…I don’t know how a little girl can go through such horrendous treatments and still so often be joyful…I don’t know if her cancer will come back…I don’t know what we’ll do if it does…I don’t know how much more we can take…

Shortly before God called Anna home to heaven, 13 years ago, I wrote the following “I don’t knows”:

I don’t know how much of our usual pre-Christmas stuff will happen.  I don’t know what or how to plan.  We do not know what to expect from here on out, and truthfully it is terrifying. We don’t know how much time is left.  I don’t know how to do this, and I don’t feel capable of doing it.  I’ve done my best to help Anna with all of the things she has learned and experienced in her almost four years of life, but I don’t know how to help her prepare to die.  I don’t know how to help Luke and Isaiah get through saying a forever goodbye to their baby sister.  I don’t know how to be a good wife to Jim in order to help him go through the most difficult thing he can imagine.  And I don’t know how I can ever bear to let my baby go.

Thirteen years later, I don’t know how we made it through those days, weeks, months. I don’t know what our family would be like if 17-year-old Anna were with us today.  Sometimes my greatest “I don’t know” is why God allowed all of that to happen. I don’t know why God planned for Anna to be with us for only four years.

Some of what I didn’t know then has been made clear, and some of it will remain a mystery to me as long as I live. Unknowns and unanswerable questions plague our earthly lives.

I Know

Thanks be to God he has granted us the most important certainties.  God blesses us to be able to profess “I know” about what is most consequential.

“I [know] that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 8:38-39

And as Anna so confidently sang, “Jesus loves me, this I know.”  

The magnitude of what God has made knowable far surpasses any worry or anxiety that comes from the unknowns. God graciously gives us his good promises in his Word, and we KNOW he is faithful.  He knows what comes next; he planned it long ago, and he is with us to the end.  

Mary, Did You Know?

A favorite Christmas song of mine is “Mary, Did You Know?”.  I wrote a few thoughts about Mary in a previous post, trying to imagine what it must have been like for her to be the one chosen to be the mother of the long-awaited Messiah. 

Any newly pregnant woman naturally wonders about what is to come.  What will this baby be like?  What kind of life will he or she have?

The angel Gabriel gave Mary the knowledge of who her baby was and what he came to do. But how much did she truly know and understand deep in the depths of her soul what it would mean for her as a mother?  How many times did others speak unanswerable questions to her about her son?

Yet Mary pondered and trusted in God’s will for her as the mother to the Savior.  With Spirit-strengthened faith, she relinquished the fear of the unknowns, giving them to the God who knows all, and prayed that she would serve well.  And any lingering, sinful doubts or questioning of God’s plan that might have remained would be forgiven by the Savior she bore. The Savior who forgives all of our doubts and anxieties about the unknowns as well.

God Knows

I don’t know.  I don’t know why God took Anna home to heaven at such a young age.  But I know, because of the faith worked in her and in me by the Holy Spirit, I’ll be reunited with her someday. Because of what God has made certain for us, I trust that nothing that happens is beyond his control or outside of his loving plan for our lives.  

When I struggle with the unknown, I pray for the strength to trust the one whose plans are only good.

I don’t know. But God does. And that’s enough.