I am certain that we could examine my life and come up with all sorts of psychological reasons that I am so compulsively compelled to nurture, caretake, and solve problems but the end result is still the same: I'm a fixer. I like the work of it, having something to do that is of service and purpose. I don't need the credit, just the opportunity.
That sounds wrong...I'd be happy if there were no need (thus, no opportunity) for fixing in this world. But, let's face it: We live in a world replete with wounds...visible and not...and so, while those wounds exist, I will fix.
A very wise and trusted advisor has invested a good bit of energy and effort over the past several years to help me see that I cannot fix the entire world, that I have the right to fix myself, and that I even have the responsibility to sometimes say no to demands on my time and energies. For the most part, I've learned to be more judicious with my efforts...to take the time to nurture myself and to not feel guilty about that.
Sometimes, though, there are situations which threaten to undo much of that growth. Situations which take my heart, rip it to shreds, and leave me consumed with the need to make it all better. Situations which leave me internally wailing and screaming with frustration because no matter what I do there is nothing I can actually do to fix it.
There is nothing more frustrating to a fixer than to be completely helpless to a situation, to be entirely unable to fix a thing about it but to want nothing more than to make it all better, to be able to wave a wand (or find the words or create a solution) and make the wounds or pain in front of us disappear.
There have been a few situations like this in my life. When I was told that my marrow recipient was, indeed, terminally ill I shattered inside and wished with all my being that I could trade places with her to spare her family the agony of losing their beloved wife, mother, daughter, and sister. I wished that for years, long after she was gone. Even still, sometimes. When I first met my godson in Honduras...a 4 year old who weighed 13 lbs 8 oz because there hadn't been enough food to feed him so that he could grow. Holding his starved, fragile, weak, deprived little body I felt smaller than I knew was possible. I could be part of the team that loved and fed this one child...but what of the millions more I could never help? Irrationally, it felt like a personal failure. I would watch this breathtakingly emaciated child begin to grow again, to smile again, and when my heart would leap with joy at his progress it would also sob in frustration at all the children who would never get what he got: A home. Food. Love.
Most recently, the situation that leaves me broken and without any answers is one that has left many others in the same dizzying spinning place as myself.
Ryan has cancer, again.
He's only 7 and he has been in the hospital since May 10...more than 9 weeks now and almost all of that in the PICU.
If you've ever loved someone going through treatment for cancer, you know that cancer is
There's nothing I can do to fix this. I cannot take the beast away. I cannot offer his parents several different solution scenarios to try out, the way I usually can for parents struggling with a parenting dilemma because cancer is way beyond "parenting dilemma". I cannot take away his tumors, one of which has taken up residence inside his spinal cord and left him unable to feel or move from the midchest down. I cannot take away the unending pain he is in...but if there were a way for me to feel it so he didn't have to, I would. I don't say that out of altruism, I say that because, quite selfishly, it would be easier to feel his pain myself than it is to watch him feel it, easier to be in pain myself than to be helpless in the face of his agony. When he vomits from chemo and radiation, I can hold a basin and wipe his face and cradle his head and murmur soothing words...but I can't stop his suffering. I can't share it. I can't even ease it. More often than not, just as I am about to truly break it is Ryan who fixes it...an impish grin, a giggle, a joke...his ability to mentally and emotionally rally around and just be a boy reminds me to focus on the small successes, on the sparkle that exists in every darkness.
I don't know how his parents stand it, every day. They are two of the strongest people I know simply for the fact that they are still coherent and upright. I don't know how they do it. I'd do anything so that they didn't have to, so that they had their laughing running dancing boy back, healthy and strong. They suffer with their son, and there is nothing that can be done about that, either.
This past week what I could not fix was a massive, raging, infection that has ravaged Ryan's defenseless system. Chemo has left him without much of an immune system and the infection ran rampant, wreaking havoc on his already embattled little body. With his blood pressure and temperature skyrocketing, the decision was made to sedate him and put him on a ventilator so that his energy can go entirely to fighting the infection.
Seeing a child you love on a ventilator is a sucker punch that will knock you to your knees.
When Ryan's mom texted me to tell me about this new development I asked her what I could do because I was at a loss. I needed to fix it for them, but knew I could not. She told me that what she needed from me was my prayers..."massive prayers."
Have you ever come up with an idea that you know didn't come from you? My faith based friends know what I am talking about, my non faith based friends just think this sort of thing has a diagnosis behind it.
Sometimes, we are merely instruments of the Spirit.
See? You either know exactly what I mean or you think I need heavy medication.
I've been used by the Spirit before. Sometimes it has been an outpouring of advice and wisdom that just pours forth, without any actual conscious effort from me. Sometimes it is a sudden very clear plan for something. When it happens, I feel different. It is hard to explain...if you felt it, you'd know it for what it is. It is a quiet and joyful peace, a secure knowing. It comes from something far greater than self.
There is a Fixer who can fix what we cannot, and that Fixer often asks us to be His hands.
A clue for me that I am just an instrument, other than that peaceful knowing, is that my heart leaps eleventy twelve thousand miles ahead of my brain. I am led by impulse, not a thought out plan.
So it was when I found my fingers typing out event invites for a prayer gathering for Ryan to be held in the hospital chapel. Without actual thought I just knew the time, place, and people. I knew the people I invited would invite others. I sent out invites, sat back, and realized with complete panic that I had no idea what I was doing.
Faith and prayer are an integral part of who I am but I am not a prayer or worship leader. I have never been comfortable in that role or even been called to that role and so I've never filled that role. And now, here I was with an event in less than 24 hours and because my heart had leapt ahead of my brain.
As amazing grace would have it, I have many friends in ministry. They are gifted and generous and compassionate and kind. Two of them were also willing, at a moments notice, to plan and prepare a prayer service complete with music, readings, reflections, and prayers.
That's how it happens when we allow ourselves to be His hands. What could be a ridiculous disaster falls magically, perfectly, effortlessly together. We have to allow self to step back, get out of the way, and reach His hands out. Sometimes, when we want most to be the fixer we have to hand the fixing over to someone else, to something else.
Oh, how sweet the sound to hear 80+ voices raised in prayerful song in that tiny hospital chapel that we used without asking permission. Standing room only, every heart as desperate as my own to heal this one child. It is a safe bet that every person who showed up wants, as badly as I do, to fix this for Ryan and his family.
And because not one of us is a miracle worker, we joined together to ask God, the one miracle worker we know, to fix what we cannot. We raised our shouts to the Lord, who can heal our every ill, and knew we were joined by hearts from all over the globe in one prayer: Heal this child, and hold his parents up.
Maybe sometimes being a fixer means knowing you can't fix it and asking the one who can to take over.
Ryan is stable for now, still sedated, still on a vent, still trying to get rid of the infection.
I can't fix that.
But I know who can.
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