Hopeful
January 11, 2021
My dad used to build custom stairs. He’s considered a master carpenter, and before he went into pastoring, he built beautiful, sometimes ornate, original staircases in homes. He built stairs that were curved, stairs that sat in the entryway of the home, free-standing stairs that someone could walk under, you name it. These stairs took function and form to art and beauty. It was pretty magnificent.
Sure, now he builds stairways to heaven in people’s lives through sharing the gospel, but I keep thinking about those physical stairs lately.
It’s relatively quiet in the medical part of my life at this moment. Sure, I’ve got some checking in on my Chiari and my Arachnoid Cyst to do, and I’ve got to keep up my B12 shots as well as maintain healthy habits so my body isn’t triggered into something unnecessarily, and I’m regaining my strength from a six-week bout of COVID, but overall, I haven’t been told I’m imminently dying in a while and that’s a win.
I’ve been thinking about those stairs my dad used to build. Lately, I’ve had the image of one of the curved set of stairs he built. From where you stood at the base of the stairs, you couldn’t see the top landing. You knew there was a second floor, obviously, but you couldn’t see it. The way the stairs were built, you could see the start of a curve, but you didn’t know what was past that, how long they went on, if the curve was halfway or closer to the bottom of the staircase, if it curved again, or if there was another landing between the floors before you got to the top. All you knew, where you stood at the base was that you’d get to the top eventually.
I’ve been equating the medical component of my life to a custom set of stairs in a house that isn’t my own. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get to the top, I don’t know what the top looks like, I don’t know how many stairs there are, and unlike actual stairs that are built according to codes governing tread depth and riser height and uniformity, mine aren’t. My stairs are governed by no code. Every step might not look the same, it might be a curve and it might be a spiral, it might have a middle landing resulting in a sharp turn, I don’t know. I know that it will end at a landing, I know that I didn’t build them and can’t remodel them, and I know that I can look back and see how far I’ve come up to this point.
My medical process will end. I’ll reach the landing. And because my conditions are largely chronic, I know that landing will be physical death when I get to heaven. I don’t know how long it will take to get there, and I don’t know what the stairs I can’t see look like. But I know who custom built this painfully beautiful set of stairs and I trust the builder. I know I don’t walk the stairs alone and I know who’s standing on the landing calling out to me, comforting me, as I climb, who’s walking next to me securely holding my right hand so I might stumble but won’t fall. I can see how far I’ve come and it’s astounding. And I know one day I’ll say that about where I am now. Which is simultaneously terrifying and thrilling.
My staircase is unique. No one else’s staircase looks like mine. And what’s beautiful is that my staircase isn’t valid or invalid based on another person’s staircase, and when we get to the top there won’t have been a staircase competition or race. Each set of stairs is valued equally by the builder, all of them bought at a very high cost, made with the finest materials and utmost care. No one else can walk my stairs and my stairs weren’t built for anyone else. And when my stairs curve and I can see another person walking their staircase, I can call out and encourage them to keep going. When someone sees me disheartened or disappointed, stuck on a single stair, they can call out from their staircase to encourage me, and then we’ll each continue to climb our stairs and when we reach the top, we’ll high-five or hug or smile and that’s something I treasure. I’ll get there and tell someone I saw them climbing and when I had sat down and couldn’t climb anymore, it was seeing them climb that prompted me to keep going, and they won’t have known me then, but they’ll know me now and they’ll know they helped me get there.
People would walk in and see the stairs my dad would build and praise him. They didn’t praise the person walking on the stairs, they praised the builder. And when the homeowner had a guest walk into their home and see these exquisitely crafted staircases in the entryway, they’d compliment the homeowner, who would give them my dad’s name and phone number and point to the builder. I hope the same can be said of my stairs.
I know that one day the staircase will end, and my hope is confidently in the landing I know I’ll reach. I’ll hold onto that hope, keep my eyes on the builder I can’t currently see, and continue on this special set of stairs through pain and sorrow, ease and delight until I am on that final step, about to reach that top landing, look back on the full set of stairs that I didn’t build and couldn’t fathom and in awe and wonder turn forward to face the builder who was also architect, guide, and creator.
I don’t know when my next medical crisis will hit if one does. I don’t know how long I’ll be alive, I’d like it to be a long life, but if my staircase ends sooner than I’d choose, that’s okay too. I don’t know when I’ll get tired and discouraged, but I know God will have someone else close by to call out an encouragement, or I’ll have my writing project to look back on and remember how far God’s brought me, or I’ll have God on the stairs with me, or all of the above! I’ll be able to encourage others, and I hope my life points to the one who gave me life and sustains my life, and guides my life more than it points to me. I know that one day I’ll reach that top landing and I’ll see God face-to-face, and I’ll have a new body, and my pain will end. God will wipe every tear I’ve cried from my eye and will hold me dearly and Lord-willing, he’ll say, “well done.” When I think of that top landing, when I consider the stairs, I see, at max, 120 years in chronic illness compared to an eternity without pain. I can endure that minuscule drop in the bucket of pain for an endless number of years in perfect physical health because I know where my landing ends. Yeah. I can do that.
And hey, maybe then I’ll finally be able to do a pull-up!
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