"Control is an illusion"

I heard this statement recently when Archie and I went to CURE's Hope and Healing weekend for parents who had lost children to cancer. Control is an illusion.

We often think we are in control of our lives. We have our plans for the day, the week, the month, the year, plans for our lives. Having plans does not make one in control.

2 years ago today I had plans. I was going to take Silas to see the Pediatrician in the morning, we would pick up a few things for Gideon's 9th birthday party and then get some lunch on the way home. I might have thought I was in control of what was happening that day, I thought I knew what I was going to do, I had decided how the day was going to go, but that's not what happened.

After hours of tests at the Pediatrician's office and at the local hospital, about 2:30 in the afternoon, the Doctor sat down with me (Silas was asleep in my arms for his afternoon nap), and told me that I had to take Silas right away to the nearest children's hospital to see a Pediatric Oncologist. She said if I didn't think I could drive that she would order an ambulance. I drove home, picked up Archie and we headed to Savannah. We were checking into the hospital at 5:30 and at 7:30 we were meeting the Oncologist who told us that they believed Silas, our 3 1/2 year old son, had a rare form of liver cancer but to be sure, they needed to do a biopsy the next day. The diagnosis was confirmed 3 days later and Silas and I didn't leave the hospital for 10 days.

A year ago we were so relieved because Silas' surgery to remove his tumors and reconstruct his vena cava had gone perfectly. He was doing well in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and the Doctors were extremely pleased with how things were going. From what they could tell, they had gotten all of the cancer out with clear margins. The surgery was a great success and we were even being approached by the hospital's PR department about doing an interview for the press. At his 1 month post surgery check up, everything came crashing down on us as it was discovered during his CT scan that he had more than a dozen new tumors and there was nothing more they could do to cure him.

You think you are in control sometimes. But you really aren't. You think you can make plans and make things happen. Sometimes that's true, sometimes you can make things happen, but that doesn't mean you are really in control.

We didn't plan on cancer. We never even imagined cancer. But it happened and it took the life of our little boy.

Control is an illusion, that is when we believe ourselves to be in control. God, however, is in control. He is working all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. As He knit each of us together in our mothers wombs, He is knitting our lives together, working things out it ways that we cannot fathom or understand even if He explained it all to us! He can see all of the factors that come in to play and how they all work together. He guides each step we take.

He knew Silas had cancer from the moment it started growing. He directed us to seek out medical attention at the right time. (though I have often felt I should have taken him in sooner and insisted that something was wrong, I now trust that God directed the timing of the discovery of the cancer). He directed every person that was involved. He used us and Silas in so many ways to reach so many people. He used Silas' short life to reach others with the good news of Jesus. God was in control when Silas could no longer live in his earthly, cancer ravaged body, and He took Silas to Heaven, to the new body and new home He had prepared for him.

God is working things out that I do not even know about. He is in control and I am so glad He is. I am not in control, and I am so glad that I am not.

Philippians 4:4