Clarity for Next Steps

As we move toward living a healthier more productive life relationally, physically and professionally, moments arise when we have no idea what to do next.  I firmly believe that God will show us our next steps.  For the past three weeks I have been facing my 21 year old daughter’s need for a lung transplant.  If you read both my blogs, this might be a bit of a repeat.  My daughter has a genetic disease called Cystic Fibrosis (CF).  CF causes the mucous throughout the body to be thick and sticky.  It blocks ducts and airways, creates a breeding ground for germs, inhibits proper weight gain and destroys the lungs.  Anna’s lungs are now at 25% capacity.  Most of us are around 100%.  The fact that she is still alive at that number is a miracle.  The chance for her continued survival at this point rests on her getting new lungs.  My life has been absorbed with investigating the various transplant centers around the US, pouring through statistics, reading transplant recipients’ blogs and watching YouTube videos.

I want answers for what to do and where to go immediately.  That has not been my experience.  Repeatedly I have been reminded that when the time is right the answers will be there.  I read it in The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie.  I heard my pastor speak about anchoring to God’s foundation last Sunday.  Friends have reminded me that we will find the answers in due time.  I have this great vision of the foundation of my steps.  At the moment only the place where my feet are right now is visible.  The next steps have nothing…literally nothing there.  So I stopped trying to move forward.  How can I move forward if I don’t know where to go?  Without clarity, the best decision is to be still and wait.

At my daughter’s suggestion, our family gathered together and we all talked about our feelings and thoughts regarding transplant centers and the transplant process.  Our family consists of my husband, my ex-husband, his wife and our three children.  Though my daughter is most profoundly affected by this topic, everyone in the family is touched in some way and everyone’s input is valuable to the final decision.  At the end of the meeting we had a unanimous decision and our next step was there: begin the application process at Duke University.

I have a renewed sense of the importance of being in the moment at hand and doing only what I have clarity to do.  We don’t have guarantees of how any of this will turn out.  Duke might not accept my daughter as a transplant recipient.  We aren’t dealing with any of that because that information is not known to us in this moment.  This moment is another ‘be still and wait’ moment.  We will have moments with movement or action and we will have many more moments of being still and waiting.  One step at a time!