CaringBridge.org - julianna

CaringBridge.org - julianna

It's worth your time reading the latest post on Julianna Banana's website. If you do yourself a favor and read the post dated Wednesday, August 3, 2005, what's a couple extra seconds - go on and sign the guest book.

Life isn't always a bunch of daisies. There are so many people struggling and sometimes the hardest struggles of all, fall to the smallest, most innocent among us. Of course, I mean pediatric oncology patients.

There are something like a million questions that I have for God someday when it's time for me to take my leave, but one of the first questions on my list will be why any of these kids have to endure this stuff. Why do some little ones recover and some fight with everything that they have within them, are teased with the prospect of recovery, only to slip away?

I am a Christian, some days I'm better at it than others, but I'm also a human and as a card carrying member of the human race, I just can't for the life of me wrap my mind around what good comes from any of this. I also recognize that I am in the forest and the trees surrounding me are very tall and sometimes quite foreboding, especially at dusk when the fading light plays tricks and turn harmless shapes into menacing shadows. Because I am in the middle of the forest, i.e., life, I realize that from my vantage point among the trees that I can't see the whole picture, what the forest looks like from a distance and most probably if I could, I wouldn't have to ask some of the questions that bombard my thoughts when I read about The Banana Family, the Duckworths, and little boys like Joshua and so many more kids on a list that is obscenely long and growing.

Maybe my being a mere mortal makes it impossible for me to understand much at all, on this side of the curtain and again, I'm not doubting that there is more to all of this than I can intellectually grasp, but still, it stymies me.

I'm certain given the import of the question, that the answer is just bound to make sense, and that is because I have Faith. I have to, otherwise why bother getting up in the morning? Faith is fuel. Hope truly isn't optional - it is essential.

The last lines of Julianna's Wednesday post declares with more eloquence than I could ever pen...

"If a child is able to climb their way above cancer, undoubtedly their ladder is made from the rungs of the support and prayers of others.

There's never been a better day to be a rung."

Everyday is a good day to be a rung. It's a long, tough climb up that ladder, so if you are going to sign on to be a rung, practice your promise and say your prayers. Be a rung that those little ones climbing up can step up to and know that it will hold them safe.