Waiting for Word

Today the National news is fixed on the unknown fate of the six miners trapped in a coal mine out in Utah. The agony of each passing minute for the families and loved ones is unimaginable.
My heart truly goes out to them. I have prayed for those families. I ask you to do the same.
I do not in anyway mean to minimise the horror of that situation, but I wanted to tell you about another agonizing wait.

Lynetta put Matthew on an airplane this afternoon and sent him off to Florida. There waiting for him to get off of that plane in Tampa was Laura, his birth mother, Connor, his 15 year old full brother, and Blake and Austin, his 10 & 8 year old half brothers, and his maternal grandparents.
We are very grateful that Matthew is getting this opportunity to meet his birth family, but we must admit it is a little unnerving - especially for Lynetta.

So, here we sit waiting for word - any word. We know that he got there safe - and we are greatful. We know that he will be treated with all of the love in the world - and we are greatful. But what we really need to know is how he is inside. Matthew is a very mature independent young man in many ways, but he is still very young at heart. We are still, I suppose, a little over protective of that heart.

Tonight after supper I pulled out a few old photographs of Matthew and his sisters. I heard sniffling behind me. I turned around to see Lynetta with big crocodile tears in her eyes. So I put the pictures away and gave her a big hug.

Every time the phone rings we both jump out of our skin. He had better call soon!

Reunion

I'm sorry that I have not updated this blog in a while. There has been a lot going on.
The Letters that arrived were awsome. Laura sounds like everything we have always prayed that she would be. It is a very exciting, emotional and nervous time for all of us - especially Matthew.

Laura told Matthew that he has a grandfather who has been praying for him by name each day for the past 18 years. He is now in poor health and he has made it his dream to someday meet Matthew. Well, he will soon get the chance. I just bought Matthew an airline ticket. He flys out next Thursday morning. Please keep him in your prayers. (He is trying to be cool about this, but we can tell that it really has him tore up)

Where is Geraldo Rivera and his camera crew when you need him? This reunion would make a great TV movie!

The Letters

We received two letters in the mail yesterday. One was addressed to Matthew - the other to Matthew's parents. They arrived just in time for Matthew's eighteenth birthday.
It's really too soon to reveal the content of the letters publicly, but I will tell you that they were from a wonderful Christian lady named Laura. (see part one)

The Lessons Get Harder

The next Lesson I learned was just as clear as the first but much harder to accept.
It is also much harder to explain. So, please bare with me.

Some of you will understand the lesson immediately. Others, who don't know my background, or the heritage in which I was raised will not.

I find it very difficult to describe the feelings of gratitude, freedom, and relief that we felt in the first few months after Matthew's final surgery. We did not actually realize the stress we had lived through for those 3 years until it was all over. I say that just to try and explain the emotions that were still very raw at the time of lesson number 2.

It happened on a Sunday evening. Because Lynetta and the kids were out of town, I ended up going to my friend's church to visit with him. This church was right down the street from the one we were attending at the time. It was not the type of church I was used to. To be honest it was the type of church I had heard preached against and condemned all of my life.

I slipped in the back door. I was afraid that someone from my home church would see me walking in. I would have a lot of explaining to do if that happened. The service had already started so I hid in the back row. My good friend Tim was the piano player. He saw me hiding.
He later said that he had to laugh because I looked so uncomfortable and out of place.

I don't remember much about the service. I do however remember not approving of the things that I saw. These people did not act like the people I was used to. They obviously did not understand the Bible. They obviously did not know the accepted pattern for God approved worship that my church knew. I spent the first thirty minutes of the service taking mental notes of all the religious error that I was seeing. Then something jolted me awake.

The preacher was actually talking to me! "Oh great," I thought. I'm not hiding as well as I thought. "Do you believe that God answers prayer?" he bellowed. Well of course I did. If he only knew my story he would know how deeply and completely that I believed in the power of prayer.
I slightly nodded my approval.

"If you truly believe in the power of prayer I want you to stand up right where you are!"
I was caught! I could not deny my conviction - not after what God had just done for me and my family. So I stood up. I remember praying: "OK God - this is far enough - Get me out of here."

It got worse: "It is not by chance or accident that you are here tonight." (this guy had been reading my mail) "We need everyone here tonight - who believes in God's power to heal - to come down to the front of this auditorium and pray with us."

Ha! Nice try. It ain't happening! I stayed put.

Then something happened that shook me so deeply that I almost ran down the aisle. There was a young woman standing in the front of the church. She appeared to be in her late teens. She held a new born infant in her arms. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. I could see a very familiar desperation in her eyes. Her child was sick. He was born with a serious birth defect. The Doctors said that the prognosis was very poor. She was pleading with God to let him live.

To make a long painful story short, I went and I cried, and I prayed. I held hands with people who loved God - people who truly believed that God was listening and that he cared - People who were not of my religious heritage or my stripe - people who acted and worshiped a little differently than I was used to. That night we had a common purpose and a common Lord and Savior. That night we were brothers. That night it dawned on me that we had been brothers all along.

That last realisation ultimately cost me my church family. It ultimately cost me my parents and my earthly brother and sister. My earthly family has not spoken to me or my wife, or my children in over 5 years. In their eyes I have abandoned "The Church" - I have left "The Faith." But it's OK, I understand. They have very deep convictions too.

Oh, and just to finish the story, God did answer the prayers of the people assembled there that Sunday evening. The child lived.

Lessons I've Learned

Maybe I'm just a slow learner. There are still many things that happened during Matthew's experience that I am still trying to process. I knew that God was trying to teach me something, and most of it came through loud and clear. But there are still some things that remain a little fuzzy.
Let's start with the really clear things:

I no longer believe in luck, chance or coincidence. God is is control - even when we don't want him to be. Looking back, I can see several times when I tried real hard to mess this whole story up. But God just wouldn't let me.

Here is just one example that I skipped back in part 2:

Working for General Motors has it's perks, but it was not always easy. During my first 10 years with the company I was laid off more than I worked. During these down times I had several odd jobs - one of which was a part time Fireman. It was a great Job, and I loved it. The trouble was we could not live off the part time wages.
The small Township department had 9 full time positions. I knew that If I could ever land one of those positions, I would be set. So the first time a spot came open, I was ready!
I spent 6 months working out, studying, and praying that God would be with me and help me get this job. After all of the testing and the physical agility evaluation, out of over 300 applicants, I came in 2nd. The Township only hired one. Needless to say God and I were not on speaking terms for a while. The way I figured it, I had tried my best, so it must have been God's fault.
The next time they hired I didn't do as well. I came out 3rd. They hired two. I really felt like God was toying with me.
The next time I decided I was going to do it all myself - no praying - no asking God for any favors. I studied harder, and worked out more than I ever had in my short chubby life. I was determined to be first.
The first day was the written test. That was a breeze. I was number one! The next day was the physical agility test. Because I knew the Captain I had a slight advantage in this category. He let me go with him over to the police academy to pick up a 135lb sand dummy they were going to use for the agility test. I remember that the dummy was in the basement down three flights of stairs. I picked the dummy up with one hand, flung it over my shoulder and walked back up the stairs without breaking a sweat. I had it made! There was no way anyone was going to beat me.
The next day I was first in every category. At the end of the day all I had to do is pick up the same dummy and walk up two flights of stairs and the job was mine. My friend (the Captain) was smiling from ear to ear. He knew I could do it. But God had other plans for me.
I bent down and grabbed the dummy - just like the day before - and it didn't budge! At first I laughed thinking that my buddies were playing a trick on me. I thought that they had glued the dummy to the floor. The captains smile vanished. He said, "come on Anderson, quit goofing around." I wasn't goofing around! The dummy would not budge. The test was timed. I had three minutes to get this dummy up the stairs. For three desperate minutes I pulled with everything I had. Nothing.

Looking back I can now picture an angel sitting on the head of that dummy laughing at me.
You see if I had got the job, we would never have come to Columbia. We would have never heard of Matthew, or Jesi, or Krysi, or Tyler, or Emily Klair, or Kinsley, or Karlie, or Maury Hills for that matter. God really does know best.

Matthew Today

Well, here he is. He turns 18 July 28th. Then he is heading off to Lipscomb in the fall. His story is far from over.
Matthew's story is really a story about how God cares for us and works in all of our lives - not because of us - but in spite of us - not because of who we are - but because of who he is. Lynetta and I are just grateful to have had the chance to watch him in action.

Part Four

Thank you all for your interest and comments on Matthew's story. It is one we have been longing to tell for a long time. We just haven't had many chances to do so.

Part Four

The surgery was a success and Matthew became an instant celebrity.
He was only the 7th person in the United States to have this surgery. He was one of even less who survived it. He was in all the Medical Journals. His case is still talked about in the teaching curriculum at Vandy.

Everything was fine for a while. Matthew was finally starting to grow. You can only imagine how truly thankful and happy we were.

But everything was not fine. We noticed that Matthew didn’t seem to have much energy. This little fireball who never sat still was now having trouble even walking from the car to the house. So, it was back to the doctors.

When the blood work came back the results were not good. Matthew's Red Blood Count was dangerously low. Test revealed that his bone marrow had stopped producing Red blood cells.
As far as we knew this could only mean one thing.

In a perfect world, the words “Pediatric Oncologist” would never be needed. But this world is far from perfect.

I remember walking into the office. This time I was mad! I was mad at God. How could he allow such a thing? After all we had been through – why me?
Then I looked around the room at the faces and the bald heads of the kids waiting there to see the doctor. I looked into the tired desperate eyes of the parents. Then I started thinking, “Why not me?” Why do me and my family deserve God’s blessing and protection and these people do not?

It wasn’t cancer. It ended up being a simple thing that the doctors had simply over looked. The part of Matthew’s intestines that absorbed B12, (The nutrient needed for your bone marrow to make RBCs) was missing. He just had to have a few shot each month to fix it. I remember feeling so guilty walking back out of that office through the crowd of parents and kids that were not going to hear such good news.