Saskia's Birthday tomorrow

Well, as we mentioned in our previous blog, the journey is over and tomorrow we celebrate Saskia's 10th birthday. Although the journey is over, the reflections and images of what we've seen and experienced are definitely not over. It's like a travel album whereby we reached safely home and now trying to put together our travel pictures with relevant stories.
Looking back at that dreadful day in November 2011, we still do not know what really hit us. The forecast of this journey was to be a long one with heavy chemotherapy and doubtful results.

How do you respond to such news? How can we as Christians still claim that our God is great and good and loving and caring, while we are facing the possibility of loosing our child?

Many of you have asked us this question and some of you have mentioned that you were inspired by how we handled ourselves and the situation we were in. The bible has a book called Job and is about a very wealthy man who has everything he wants. All that he has is taken away from him, his farmlands are destroyed, his cattle and stock is either stolen or dead and all of his children die. In all that trouble he kept his faith, as he said: “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?”.

However all the bad stuff had already happened to Job when he said it. He did not know what was to come, but when it came he accepted it.

We on the other hand were informed of the hardship that laid ahead. We were told that we will see our daughter suffer for a long period of time with a potential deadly result.

We did not understand what was happening and we absolutely hated the trouble that awaited us, but the same day that Saskia was diagnosed, we accepted the trouble from God in blind faith. There was not a moment of doubt in our minds and hearts that whatever the end result would be, it would be His way, that Saskia would be in His hands, even if He took her away from us.

I say blind faith, as that is what it is. We were totally blind for what was happening and we needed to be guided and carried. Since that total submission to God, we only received good news. All test showed positive in such way that it even astonished the doctors. After a successful operation and some further tests, the verdict is that she needs to be monitored over the next 10 years or so, but there is no need for any chemo.

What do we do with such message? It feels like we were held by our shoulders and given a good shake up as if to say: YOU SEE, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WORRY, LOOK AT ME FIRST AND ALL WILL BE OK.

This sounds awfully similar to what Jesus Himself said:

“But seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”

And that’s exactly what we did and that’s exactly what we received.

I know that a lot of non-Christians are reading this blog and they might think that whatever happened was good luck, and I fully agree. It is just a matter of how one defines "luck".

For all of you who say that there is no God and that Jesus was just a good moral man, but are open-minded and willing to hear and explore some of the reasons why we believe that God is real, I suggest the following website: http://y-jesus.com/ 

For now, we are thankful for all the good that has come from our journey. We have come closer as a family and tomorrow we celebrate Saskia's 10th birthday: Happy Birthday Saskia!