Day +6. Our sweet Geoffrey, to this point, has done well. I say that fully aware, at this early stage post-transplant, it is complex medical care and the grace of God that is sustaining Geoffrey’s life. Sharon’s cells are still finding their way around. They need time to grow and to find their home.

We wait and pray. And, quite surprisingly, Geoffrey plays.  His joy, in the midst of the terribly hard, remains an unexpected gift for today.  And for it, I give thanks.

Ryan’s transplant, as one friend helped me put words to, challenged me to “unlearn” some things. About the way I plan. About the way I pray.  About the words I say and write, the patterns of my thoughts regarding pain and loss. About the ways I strive to please people.  In the darkest moments of Ryan’s journey, I needed to not get ahead of God. I sense the same is true, whether in what feels good or bad, with Geoffrey. Don’t get ahead of God.

“Will you sleep next to me?,” an invitation from this little boy who fills so much of my heart. As I lay next to Geoffrey in his “airplane bed,” he giggles with delight. Chemo running through his veins. He wants to go home but is content for the moment with me beside him. It kind of undoes me, and my mind wonders how I get to have this privilege which is as hard as it is sacred. It makes me think again about his mama – the one who grew him, birthed him, and nursed him. I really only know her through the lives of her exceptional little ones; but I wish I could sit with her over a cup of chai and ask her questions.

A year ago on this day, Geoffrey was in a hospital in Eldoret, struggling to survive complications of a disease that we are now believing he will be healed of. I do not really understand how all of this has happened. What I see taking place in Ryan, I am asking for Geoffrey. I desperately desire for the path to get there to be smoother but trust in all things the loving-kindness of God will sustain us.