Can I Drink this Cup?

Can I drink this cup of sorrow with Jesus? I have few tears these days, but I feel anger starting to rise. Anger that Olive could not live without a Shunt to survive, but the very thing she couldn't live without, killed her in the end. How fair is that?

A broken shunt, a repaired shunt, Leaking CSF fluid. I find myself getting angry that the medical field couldn't resolve the broken shunt. And then I keep going back to the truth that doctors are not God, they are humans, only doing their best and relying on God to do the healing.

So who am I really ultimately angry at? Do I even dare audibly say it? It is easier to lash out at doctors than at God, who is ultimately in control of my life. People say "it was best for Olive, she is in a better place now." I know that, but it doesn't make it feel better.

I am sure every doctor who worked on Olive wanted to see her pull through. We watched the nurses and her doctors fall in love with her. We saw doctors soften as they observed her feisty spirit. The first doctor in Chaing Rai said, "Olive is strong, like her mother." An interesting observation to make after only knowing her mother for one week. That feisty spirit kept her alive for 4 months, long enough to bring her home to us. (That thought brings back my tears). I've observed that writing often turns my anger back to tears of sorrow.

There was a new inner strength born in both Lynette and Rusty from becoming advocates for Olive. In Lynette, I observed her strength become "feisty," born out of becoming Olive's advocate. Her Nursing degree knowledge was a big asset to her ability to communicate both with the Thai medical field, as well as the SB medical field. And Rusty fought so hard to work with an inadequate Insurance company, the Monster we have created in America to pay our bills.

But that isn't what I spend my evenings and mornings lamenting about. It is the Shunt. I can't seem to lay it down. Why did it have to be faulty God? Why couldn't you have made Olive's body accept the shunt and relieve her brain? Why did she have to suffer so much after looking so good when she arrived? After the shunt, she suffered from acid reflux and seizures. This "cup" you brought to our family to drink......I must take a good hard look at it before I am willing to drink it.....

Henri Nouwen says, "You have to know what you are drinking, and you have to be able to talk about it. A life that is not reflected upon is not worth living. Holding the cup of life means looking critically at what we are living. This requires great courage because, when we start looking, we might be terrified with what we see." He also says, "When we drink the cup without holding and embracing it first, we may simply get drunk and wander around aimlessly." We have to be able to say, "this is my life, not someone else's. My life is unique. There won't be another one just like it to compare my life to."

Henri also recognized that some of his emotional needs and desires remained unfinished into his old age. He experienced deep sorrow that he had not become the person he hoped to be. The God he had prayed to had not given him what he had most desired. (p37)

"Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" Jesus asked his disciples. "It is a cup full of physical, mental, and spiritual anguish. Jesus cup had too much sorrow to embrace, but he did....He possessed a TRUST beyond betrayal, a surrender beyond despair, a love beyond fear."

Does embracing Jesus cup mean I am willing to trust God when Lynette becomes pregnant again? Jesus didn't show heroism by drinking the cup, "but a deep spiritual yes to Abba, the lover of his wounded heart."

Jesus dared to drink the cup given to him. The sorrow given to him makes him both one of us and our Redeemer all at the same time. He understands our pain and even my anger about Olive's broken Shunt.

I will always look at Communion differently. Do I really want to Drink from the CUP? Do I really understand what it means to Drink the CUP with my Community of believers?

Excerpts from: Can you Drink the Cup, Henry J. M. Nouwen.