He loves you today and always

I was scrolling through Facebook and watched a video that my friend had posted. It was a talk given by Dieter F. Uchtdorf in 2014. Here is what it said,

“The infinite and eternal Creator of light and life knows you! He is mindful of you.
Yes, God loves you this very day and always.
He is not waiting to love you until you have overcome your weaknesses and bad habits. He loves you today with a full understanding of your struggles. He is aware that you reach up to Him in heartfelt and hopeful prayer. He knows of the times you have held onto the fading light and believed—even in the midst of growing darkness. He knows of your sufferings. He knows of your remorse for the times you have fallen short or failed. And still He loves you.
And God knows of your successes; though they may seem small to you, He acknowledges and cherishes each one of them. He loves you for extending yourself to others. He loves you for reaching out and helping others bear their heavy burdens—even when you are struggling with your own.
He knows everything about you. He sees you clearly— He knows you as you really are. And He loves you—today and always!”

I can’t tell you how much comfort it gave me to hear those words. To know that He is aware of me. And Mac. And everyone from Dr. Green to little Bo Bo. It comforts me to remember how much He loves Mac. That He hears our prayers and knows our deepest feelings. It reminded me of another talk titled, “Come What May, and Love It”. I thought, if I can believe that God is truly aware of me and not only aware, that He knows everything about me, then maybe I really can embrace, come what may, and love it. I looked up the talk and here are some words from it.

“How can we love days that are filled with sorrow? We can’t—at least not in the moment. I don’t think my mother was suggesting that we suppress discouragement or deny the reality of pain. I don’t think she was suggesting that we smother unpleasant truths beneath a cloak of pretended happiness. But I do believe that the way we react to adversity can be a major factor in how happy and successful we can be in life.
Because Jesus Christ suffered greatly, He understands our suffering. He understands our grief. We experience hard things so that we too may have increased compassion and understanding for others.”

It brought me to deep thought. I thought about how often I try to resist things I cannot change or worry about the way things might someday be. I think what these talks are trying to say is that we don’t have to do that. We don’t have to spend our time resisting. We need to spend our time embracing. If we know He is aware and that He loves us, embracing is really all we can do. It’s a waste of our time and energy to resist.

I think of our situation right now as a puzzle. Right now, we just don’t have very many pieces. We don’t have a diagnosis, we don’t have a treatment plan, we don’t have a timeframe. Some pathology came back from the second tumor. It is unrelated to the larger one. The good news is that it could have been a lot of other worse things. The bad news is that it is a third diagnosis (first AML, then a glioma, now whatever they are calling this, I can’t remember). It’s probably not going to change the course of treatment but they will continue to look into why Mac has so different things going on. This week there is an international neuro-oncology conference in Liverpool. Dr. Green who is Mac’s doctor is going. All of the best neuro oncologists will be there and they will be able to review Mac’s case. On June 21st, we’ll meet with Dr. Green to hear about the pathology and plan going forward.

For now, I’m going to embrace each day. Mac is making great progress with his therapy. A week ago, he couldn’t walk at all. We’re taking it a day at a time. Children’s hospital is out of network with our insurance. Because our admission started as an ER visit, we were ok but now they have refused to cover any out-patient therapy. They said we could go to Vegas which is so unrealistic it’s crazy. Right now we are at my dad’s house about 45 minutes from Children’s. It’s been interesting to be out of the hospital. It’s nice to not be checked up on every 5 seconds and it’s great to be with family. It is really difficult to help Mac physically and emotionally while dealing with crazy active Bo. It’s too much for one person. We’re trying to enjoy this time before Mac will inevitably start chemotherapy. Lots of pieces to the puzzle. But we love these boys and we’re so grateful to be their parents!