Aftermath.

 af·ter·math

/ˈaftərˌmaTH/

noun

1. 1.

   the consequences or aftereffects of a significant unpleasant event.

Here I am in the aftermath of Alex's PET scan on Monday. Think of all the ways you feel when an answer you deeply hoped would be positive comes back as a hard no. Yeah. All I could do was stand in the doorway to Alex's room and stare at him with disbelief when he said the news was bad. How many times have I stood in that doorway now and looked at him in disbelief. How on earth could it be bad, again?! Every single time I am holding on to hope. Every time. Stupid hope.

Of course I don't really think hope is stupid. (It has a lot of great qualities. It apparently springs eternal. The recommendation stands that you shouldn't give it up, yet it can be dashed). But the real kicker for me in this moment is that hope is so very tenacious. It is very hard to kill. Mostly I'm a fan of hope. Except when I'm not. Like now. I mean, I don't want to lose it or anything, but...

On Monday I was contemplating how it was possible that in my deepest heart I really thought the news would be good. Every single scan I have approached with this tension, working so hard to hold both possible outcomes in my hands equally so as not to be disappointed if the results are bad. And EVERY SINGLE time I'm shocked and completely dismayed. What on earth? 

Honestly? So many things just boil down to the tension that lies in all the many many paradoxes of this life. How to hold hope and surrender simultaneously. Free will and predestination. Freedom in Christ and being constrained in order to love the other well. Healing and sickness. Life and death. The perfection of the original creation and our current broken world. So much tension. I would say a lot of people just decide to pick a side cause holding the tension is tough. (In my opinion this is part of how we've gotten to so many denominations. The inability to sit in the tension that 2 things that seem to contradict each other can both be true simultaneously, it's not either or).

Anyhoo. So yeah. That's precisely where you find me today. Sitting here in the tension of having held onto the hope that Monday would reveal glorious news and instead there's just this aftermath of heavy prospects and suffering ahead. Cheers.