The Good I Could Not Withhold

  I've been pondering this thing called time. The way it holds opposing truths. One moment we can be racing the hands of time. Another we can be pleading for time to move.  Five more minutes with someone we love.  Wishing away the 2-minute hockey penalty kill. Running late to something important.  Counting down to a tropical vacation in a Minnesota winter.  First days and months after grief and how life can be frozen in time.  The anticipation of days and weeks until a baby is born.  So much of our days are consumed with this notion of time. Some days it moves like a thief, swift and unapologetic. Other days it sits still, unmoving or slowly creeping ahead like a sloth.  Months ago this journey began with a single question, "Can I be approved to be a living kidney donor?"   If the answer was yes - and a hundred literal miracles did happen - my hope was to donate at the beginning of April.  That meant tests. More tests. Waiting for an inv...

There's a quiet lie many of us believe without realizing it: real faith never waivers. That if you truly believe, you will always be confident, secure and steady. Yet, that is not the reality. We have moments of uncertainty, we question God's plan, we lose sight of the goodness of God. Tuesday, February 3, both my son and husband told me they weren't feeling well. My son had a 102' fever. The low-level anxiety I was already carrying with me, began to build. Not this week I tell them. Of all weeks - please not this week!  For over three months, I had been awaiting this week with anticipation and so much uncertainty. Early Wednesday morning, before the sun came up, I was hitting the road for three days at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. The purpose: testing to see if I could qualify as a living kidney donor.  God had been planting kidney donation on my heart in unique ways for who knows just how long, but as the testing dates approached, I realized just how convicted and d...