We are in the season of Advent. We are waiting for our Savior to be born – we are waiting for Christmas. This theme of waiting, anticipating, pushing forward day after day and not fully knowing what is coming runs so parallel to our journey with Raleigh on the GAPS diet. It feels as if we are in a prolonged season of Advent for Raleigh’s healing. We are waiting on it to come, to be full and complete.
Waiting is so hard. I’ve said it before, and likely I’ll say it again, but I believe a large part of this journey for me, personally, has something to do with patience and trusting that the God who brought us here will bring us out of it. It has felt like living in a winter for so long. I long for the harvest of what this season will bring.
We are closing in on a year and a half on the GAPS diet. We’ve settled into a routine. Things are steady enough, but we’re in a holding pattern of sorts. There have been a few times on this journey where we felt like we had plateaued with Raleigh’s progress. He wasn’t getting worse or going backwards, but it didn’t seem like he was improving. Typically, it was in these times that we realized all of the sudden that something had in fact changed. The first, biggest change was his asthma. It was as if one day it was here and the next it was gone. He hasn’t had any trouble breathing in probably close to a year now! Then came the change to the skin on his face; the color and the softness. It seemed to change over night. I was finally able to see that his skin tone is yellowish compared to me and Evelyn, who have the pink-toned skin. That was something I hadn’t seen before. Next came his hands. I’ll never forget holding them before the change. They were rough and course feeling until one night, when I took his hand to pray, they weren’t anymore. The changes have been slow, but steadily they come.
We live in Colorado, in an intensely dry climate, and just recently the dryness got bumped up a few notches. It’s affected Raleigh quite a bit. I feel like I was seeing his thighs begin to really soften before the shift in the weather. But now that we’re battling an old foe, we’ve had some excessively dry skin and some eczema to contend with. It’s frustrating and exhausting, to be quite honest. It’s difficult to be patient sometimes with the process, even in a process we so thoroughly believe in and are committed to.
I have moments of yearning for this season to end. I want so badly to be on the other side of all of this. Sometimes when I am covering Raleigh in cream and wrapping his body in wet wraps in areas that desperately need extra moisture, I remind myself that this little boy won’t always be here, and neither will I. This isn’t my forever; it’s just my season right now. God has me planted in a Winter, and He sees me buried deep waiting for my harvest. I think it’s really easy to forget that God sees us where He has planted us. It’s funny because we ask God to change our situation when really He put us in this situation to change us.
I heard a song this week that brought me to tears. It rings so true to a season of waiting. I needed to hear it and be reminded that I am seen by God. He can see my promise even though I’m buried in this Winter. The nature of patience is about being content to wait if God is not done working. The Winter won’t last forever and the harvest will come. I believe that my season will come. I believe that Raleigh will be fully healed.
Seasons by Hillsong
VERSE 1
Like the frost on a rose
Winter comes for us all
Oh how nature acquaints us
With the nature of patience
Like a seed in the snow
I’ve been buried to grow
For Your promise is loyal
From seed to sequoia
I know
Though the winter is long even richer
The harvest it brings
Though my waiting prolongs even greater
Your promise for me like a seed
I believe that my season will come
Lord I think of Your love
Like the low winter sun
As I gaze I am blinded
In the light of Your brightness
Like a fire to the snow
I’m renewed in Your warmth
Melt the ice of this wild soul
Till the barren is beautiful
I can see the promise
I can see the future
You’re the God of seasons
I’m just in the winter
If all I know of harvest
Is that it’s worth my patience
Then if You’re not done working
God I’m not done waiting
You can see my promise
Even in the winter
Cause You’re the God of greatness
Even in a manger
For all I know of seasons
Is that You take Your time
You could have saved us in a second
Instead You sent a child
And when I finally see my tree
Still I believe there’s a season to come
Like a seed You were sown
For the sake of us all
From Bethlehem’s soil
Grew Calvary’s sequoia
Merry Christmas,
Danielle
