a more final word

            A few days after returning home from the hospital, we received the results of a fecal test that confirmed "severe exocrine pancreatic insufficiency."  In short, Valor's pancreas is not absorbing fat, protein, and essential vitamins as it should, explaining his slow growth.  Poor pancreas function along with bone marrow failure are two key symptoms of Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome (SDS), the genetic condition doctors suspect Valor has.  While genetic tests, which take weeks to return, will confirm or deny SDS, the results of the fecal test stirred up mixed feelings for me. 
            Knowing Valor has pancreatic insufficiency explains his slow weight gain and why my aggressive efforts to increase my milk supply and supplement with formula did not result in proper growth.  His pancreas diagnosis also removes some of the guilt I felt fearing I wasn't able to provide all Valor needs.  And, most importantly, his pancreas issues can be treated with daily medicine and vitamins he will take for life.  Valor is now growing at the rate doctors want to see.  We are relieved to see signs of health in Valor and to have found a piece of the puzzle.
            However, while we desperately want answers, receiving a diagnosis involving words like "incurable genetic disease" is heartbreaking.  I don't want Valor to have Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome for many reasons.  1.) Receiving a diagnosis feels so final, like a judge's sentence or pounding gavel.  We may be able to file an extension for our taxes, sweet talk the police officer about our speeding ticket or motivate our screaming children with bribes.  But somehow a doctors words feel more weighty, more written in stone. Our doctor has looked inside us or our child and found things we didn't know existed. 2.) The hope that Valor's hospitalizations have been blips on our screen and life will soon return to normal fade as his diagnosis becomes more clear. 3.) I am sad that something in me, Elijah or both has been passed on to Valor and is causing his illness.  What does that means for our other kids and future grandchildren?  We won't know the answers to these questions until we meet with Duke genetics doctors in May.
           As my mind wrestles with these difficult thoughts, God pulls me back to our spiritual condition and his solution.  We all have a "genetic disorder." It's called sin.  Since Adam and Eve, parents have been passing on their sin nature to child after child.  King David, said he was "fearfully and wonderfully made" in Psalm 139. But he also said, "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me," in Psalm 51 after committing adultery with Bathsheba and murdering her husband, Uriah.  What if we mourned the sin we passed on to our children with the same devastation we grieve an inherited genetic disorder?
            But God also has a final word of his own. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus...It is God who justifies. Who is it that condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?" (Romans 8:1,33-35)
            In Paul's day (and in some places today), famine and sword felt very "final," just as today our diagnosis often feels final.  Yet, God has spoken a more final word than our diagnosis.  He has spoken a word of life, of justification, of reconciliation that will overrule all dreaded words or conditions. How can God speak a more final word than our diagnosis?  
            The International Christian ministry called Alpha tells the story of a man named Patrick, who had double kidney failure and was on dialysis for 25 years. Patrick was a Christian, but God did not heal him through prayer or through a kidney transplant that failed. Instead God gave Patrick the gift of healing and used him to pray for and heal many sick people.  As Patrick reflected,  God already gave him the best gift of eternal life and a future resurrected body at Jesus' return. To have his body healed before the resurrection would just be icing on the cake.
            In the same way Jesus was sentenced to death and executed, but God spoke a more final word of resurrection for Jesus, and all who seek Jesus' life, truth and ways as their highest good. Whatever your diagnosis, in Jesus, God has spoken a more final word.    God's Final Word, Brandi & Elijah Lovejoy