Take this cup vs. thy will be done

So now we wait.

The person in charge of scheduling surgeries is out until early next week. I’ve got a weekend ahead of me, those two days I race toward yet sometimes dread once they arrive. It’s much easier for me to sit in my edit suite and edit a :30 second television commercial, as I have been today, than to face Ian’s future.

It’s that hiding thing again.

Lots of friends, family and online writers are praying for Ian. Earnest, sincere prayers. The night before his echocardiogram, many family members prayed that the test would reveal that the hole in Ian’s heart had closed.

It hasn’t.

The question of why a prayer “works” one time and “doesn’t work” another time is an ageless question. Theologians, philosophers and lay preachers have written libraries full of books on the matter.

Christ in the garden, moments before his arrest.

“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”

Annie is all about “remove this cup” right now. Make Ian better.

I, on the other hand, don’t believe God will “remove the cup,” so I’m in the “thy will be done” camp at the moment. Not out of any great spiritual faith, mind you. I like to think of myself as a realist, but that’s a cop-out. It’s just less painful in the end if you always plan for the worst.

People are praying that the surgery will go well, that the doctors will make the right decisions and that Ian will heal properly. I think, “Why stop there? Pray that Ian’s Down Syndrome will go away, and while you’re at it, pray that all the amputated legs of injured soldiers would grow back!” I mean, if God can heal “small” things like holes in the heart, surely the “big” things are no challenge for Him.

But then I have to stop myself.

Go back to that garden.

It’s a choice I make, to pray that prayer. Not some kind of blind faith. No. I will myself to believe it, even when all the circumstances seem to shout otherwise.

The tension is in embracing both parts of the prayer equally.

“Heal my son, Ian, God.”

“Do with Ian what you will, God.”

Can I live with that?