Heidi is scheduled to get Erica’s kidney August 10th.

She’s been cancer-free for a year, and now her other major health problem, the one that has made her despair of living so many times as she has endured dialysis in its many horrific forms, is going to go away. She will be, finally … healed.

As I think about the journey that started December of 2018 and, in many ways, is about to come to a close, there is one thing that rises above the detritus of thoughts and feelings that I have about this period in our lives.

God said he would save Heidi, and he did.

January of 2019, as I cried about Heidi’s horrible new diagnosis, I asked God Are you going to heal Heidi? I have to know how this ends. Tell me. Give me a sign. And he gave it to me–immediately.

As I’ve written about before, it turns out that getting a sign … does not make things easier. As Heidi faced death over and over, as complication after complication made it seem like she wouldn’t be able to get a bone marrow transplant she needed, as we planned her funeral and talked about her wishes and joked about the eulogy I would give, I had to contemplate not just the death of my sister, but the death of my faith.

If God didn’t do what he said, I couldn’t trust him again.

Things between us would be broken forever.

Pretending otherwise was unthinkable.

Early on, I shared what God told me with Adam and my sisters, but beyond that, it felt too risky. Too crazy. I kept the sign mostly to myself.

Then, I realized how cowardly that was. If I was so hesitant to share, that must mean I didn’t really believe it. God had given me a gift, and I was treating it like a shameful secret instead of something incredible. But I couldn’t help thinking, what if he doesn’t do it? What if I share it widely, and he fails me?

Put my glory at stake, God seemed to whisper into my heart. It feels scary, but I’m God. It’s not scary to me.

So I did.

I couldn’t shut up about it for a while. I blogged about it, talked about it with anyone who would listen. And even as my faith experienced a wonderful boost through this process … I remember the looks and responses. People nodding, smiling … and then clearing their throats. Looking down awkwardly. Looking back up to tell me, Be careful. Lots of people think they get signs, but it’s just wishful thinking and self-deception.

Trust me, I get it. I don’t blame anyone for this response. Plenty of people claim to have “heard from God” and predict things like the end of the world next Tuesday. I fully considered that I might be one of these crazies! And I didn’t expect for anyone to accept my word for it, wholesale. Only time would prove the truth or foolishness of my little sign.

But I clung to it anyway. Being cautious and smart had come to taste of a kind of duplicitousness to me. After all, I asked, and He gave it. Why hide that? Didn’t the prophets speak out unreasonable-sounding things all the time?

What proceeded was not some sweet experience of absolute trust and peace. It was two and a half years of standing on the edge of that promise as it seemed like the very earth was crumbling under me, and God’s character with it.

I fell into a profound depression. God was not doing what he said. Heidi nearly died . . . many times over. There was a period of months in which I couldn’t stop crying. I remember sitting in my car in the parking lot at work, late because I was unable to stop weeping. Tears racked my body like the waves of a storm set on destroying me. I wept in the grocery store, at the dry cleaner’s, at the hospital, in my car, on a bus, on my bed. I thought about self-harm, a lot. I thought about ending my life.

I was Jacob, wrestling with God, demanding a blessing for Heidi. And he has given it. But like Jacob, I’m walking away from this experience with a limp. Changed. Hurt. Injured. God has saved my sister … but he has not spared us from breaking.

But the point of this post isn’t to unearth all of the questions, truths, and darkness that I now carry with me. It’s to say,

He did it.

He said “I will do it,” and he did.

You have no idea how incredible it is to write these words, in spite of everything. Like releasing a long-held breath, like finally flopping into bed after an exhausting day, like … rest.

The story has been a heart-pounding thriller, a horror movie with twists and turns jumping out from behind every door. It’s been a heartfelt poem, a shriek of lament, a whipping chaos that felt like it was no story at all. And now … it gets to be a song of praise.

God isn’t just someone who did things thousands of years ago. He does things today. Speaks to us now. And follows through.

Isaiah (the 40s and 50s) has been my book during these past few years. It holds the words I used to beg God to be faithful to us, and the hope I dug my bleeding fingers into as I lived inside this long nightmare. And now, I get to share these words with you that so often I hoped I’d be able to say:

Who has announced from of old the things to come?

Let them tell us what is yet to be.

Do not fear, or be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it?

You are my witnesses! Is there any god besides me?

There is no other rock; I know not one.

I am the Lord, and there is no other.

I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness;

I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, “Seek me in chaos.”

I the Lord speak the truth, I declare what is right.

I am God, and there is no other;

I am God, and there is no one like me,

declaring the end from the beginning

and from ancient times things not yet done,

saying, “My purpose shall stand, and I will fulfill my intention.”

The former things I declared long ago,

they went out from my mouth and I made them known;

then suddenly I did them and they came to pass.

You have heard; now see all this;

and will you not declare it?

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

and do not return there until they have watered the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

My sign about Heidi’s healing is much more than just that. It’s a sign to anyone who’s walked this journey with us that God is to be trusted.

He does what he says.

Love you all, and thank you for following along.