I left my son in the hospital tonight.  He is four.  After a third seizure ten days after the second one, we scheduled an overnight EEG (electrodes glued to the head of a four-year-old for 24 hours) to try to identify where the seizures originate.

While waiting the three weeks for the appointment, he had a fourth seizure. 

Then this morning before the time that he usually wakes up, he had another one…on the day of the EEG.

Tonight, I left my small son in the hospital hooked up to electrodes all night.

Now my husband is there with him so he is not alone and abandoned.  He is in a hospital so it is actually a safer place to be than at home should he have another seizure.  And this is just diagnostic; he is not in a life and death situation.  I get to go back tomorrow morning for breakfast with them and bring him home when the testing is done.  He is not dying, he is not dead, and he is not alone. 

But I felt so alone driving home. 

And guilty.  What role did I have in his genetics or even prenatal brain damage that caused this?  Was this willfulness on my part in having him that he now has the consequence of epilepsy, seizures, and medications that can cause organ failure or suicidal ideation? 

I trusted God to play the songs I needed to hear on the radio on the drive home, and they were all about Jesus.  Not God in general or hope or storms but Jesus. 

The saints and angels all adore…  You stand alone, I stand amazed.  Jesus, only Jesus!

Phillips, Craig & Dean, “Jesus, Only Jesus“

That song was followed immediately by:

He knows, He knows. Every hurt and every sting. He has walked the suffering.

Jeremy Camp, “He Knows” 

I am beloved of Jesus. He knows what I am going through and He is sad with me.

You know those things you have heard before, maybe for years, and you know them.  And then suddenly it hits you differently and you KNOW it.  I deal with my own health problems and get annoyed, but my son is sick?  That’s different.  That’s unfair.  I haven’t railed at God because I do not believe He has done this, but there is still heaviness and sadness that my son has this – and may always have it, we learned today. 

Then I heard on the radio HE KNOWS.  Jesus was alone, dying, and died.  He was God’s own Son and God left Him in the hands of humans, did not save Him, and let Him die. 

Can you imagine NOT doing something to save the life of your child?  I can’t.  I could barely leave my child tonight and he is not even in critical condition.  We are extremely fortunate to have caught this as early as we did, prior to serious brain damage.  I know God can save my son from epilepsy.  We could wake up tomorrow and it would be gone, but I also know that will not happen in this case.  He did not even save his own Son from death. 

HE DIDN’T SAVE HIS OWN SON FROM DEATH. 

God watched while Jesus was beaten and murdered and did not stop it.  Imagine His heaviness, sadness, longing to save His Son – having the power to save His Son – and not doing it. 

Why would a Father do that?! 

For me. 

For you. 

For my son. 

I don’t have the power to save my son but would if I could.  God had the power to save His Son but didn’t.  Jesus knows the aloneness and pain, the begging God to help Him. 

He knows.