Being Jill's Dad

Now, many of you guys have heard of Jill. You know that she is my daughter and that she's disabled severely. And, you know, you've heard of Jill's house, which is kind of named after her.

But that's about it. Most of you were not around here. Jill's 21 years old now. You weren't around in the early years when Jill was at her absolute worst.

And so I thought I'd go all the way back to the beginning and just let you walk a little bit with me through Jill's life. You know, when we dedicate children to the Lord, we make them say six vows, six promises. And number five is, will you do your best to release your child to the will of God, whatever that might be, without bitterness or resistance. And when we dedicated our three older boys, we said, yes, we will to this. And it was never a problem because they were normally developing children and it was great. Then when Jill was born in 1992 as a baby, we brought her up here and we had these same vows.

And we said, yes, we'll release her to the will of God, whatever that might be, having no clue what we had just said. Jill started having seizures when she was three months old, little focal seizures in her hand. And then those seizures quickly morphed into grand mal seizures. And then they kept going. She wouldn't just have one a week. She'd have one a day, then two a day, then five a day, then eight a day.

I'm talking every day. And so I kept thinking, well, you know, there's all this great medicine out there. There's all these great drugs. I mean, sooner or later, we'll find a drug that'll control this.

And so we tried. But, you know, seizure drugs are different than a lot of other drugs in that if you've got a strep throat, you know, the doctors know you give X 250 milligrams of amoxicillin for so many days and it doesn't. Well, that's not how seizure drugs work.

Seizure drugs, nobody's sure what's going to work. And so they start you on a drug. They take it up and up and up and up and up, hoping at some point it'll control the seizures. And eventually, if it doesn't, you reach toxicity, which doesn't mean you die. But it means that the patient becomes like a zombie.

They just completely are zoned out and out of touch with reality. And so then what you have to do is taper them back down. You go to a second drug. You go all the way back up to toxicity.

That doesn't work. And this is what we did with Jill. And it was so painful to watch this happening to your daughter and see the effects of these drugs. And they weren't controlling the seizures. But you never knew if the next drug was going to work. So you had to try it.

Well, nothing worked. And Jill got to the place where she was having seizures so often that we were starting to have to call the rescue squad because we couldn't get the seizures to stop. And the rescue squad would show up at our house and they would transport Jill to the intensive care unit. And then we'd spend two or three days in the hospital with her, Brenda or I sleeping in the chair.

And one of us would go home and take a shower and we'd come back. Now, remember, we had three boys. John, my youngest son, was seven. My middle son, Justin, was 11.

James was 14. And we had a perfect little family up until Jill was born. You know, Brenda and I went to the games. We went to their school plays.

We went to all of their, you know, things at church. I mean, we were totally involved in their life. And then Jill came along and all of that stopped. I mean, we were so consumed with just keeping Jill alive from day to day that it's like the boys lost their parents. I mean, we didn't want that to happen but she only got so much energy and time.

And at best, one of us would be able to attend one of their events. But never both of us. And sometimes not even one of us if we were in the hospital with Jill.

And so they just lost us. Now, I remember Thanksgiving Day just before Jill turned two. She had 19 grand malls before the turkey came out of the oven.

19. And we had to call the rescue squad and Brenda and I spent Thanksgiving in the hospital the whole weekend. And the boys, we had to farm out to friends of ours and they spent all of Thanksgiving over another person's house.

This is what happened to our life. And Jill would have seizures day and night. She didn't sleep through the night for the first eight years of her life because she was having seizures every night. Which means that Brenda and I didn't sleep through the night for eight years. Didn't get REM sleep at all or not much to speak of for eight years. We all know when we have a baby and the baby for the first six or eight weeks doesn't sleep through the night. You're just like after a while walking around like you're, you know, in a fog. But you got hope.

You know, that one morning you're going to wake up and the baby has slept through the night. You know, that didn't happen for us. We were absolutely spent and exhausted. And I do want to say a big word of thanks to you guys as a church family and to our elders. I mean, in those days, had you all not been incredibly flexible with us, I could never have gone on as the pastor of McLean Bible Church. I mean, you know, in addition to all of this I'm telling you about, I still had to, you know, preach every week and be here at church. And so you all were so understanding and flexible with us.

And I really appreciate that. In the year 2000 when Jill was eight, everything just fell apart. She lost the ability to walk, which she had had up to that point. She lost the ability to even stand up. She lost the ability to sit in a chair without rolling out of the chair. We used to have to strap her in with a belt under her armpits and tighten the belt behind her so we could feed her. It was bad.

It was so bad. And we went to see her neurologist here locally who's a good friend of ours. And he said, Brenda and I were in there with Jill. And after examining her he said, Well, Lon and Brenda, he said, I just, I don't know what to say except I think the seizures have finally caught up with Jill and I think we're going to lose her. Of course, Brenda started to cry. And I said, Brenda, why don't you take Jill and kind of go on out in the hallway, you know, the doctor's office.

And she did. And so as we were sitting there talking, we were getting up to leave and he turned to me and he said, You know, Lon, this is the doctor. He said, I hope you don't misunderstand what I'm about to say. He said, But whatever final arrangements you need to make for Jill, he said, if I were you, I would, he said, I would, I would start making them. So, you know, I kind of knew it was bad when we went in there. But to actually have a doctor say something like that to you, man, I mean, it just it was I don't know, it was overwhelming.

So I didn't tell Brenda he had said that because I knew it would just be it would upset her too much. But I came home, went up in my study, fell down on my knees and I just said, God, you got to do something, please. I'm just begging you for a miracle. I mean, I love my daughter with all of her disabilities and all of the extra work and all of the scrambling up of our family that's happened. I mean, I love my little girl.

I don't want to lose Jill. I don't even know how I could possibly plug that hole. And Lord, this is so bad. I don't even have a suggestion. Now, folks, I want you to know I always have a suggestion as to what I think the Lord ought to do.

I have several sometimes I didn't have a suggestion. I just said, God, you've got to do a miracle. Well, two weeks later, January of 01, we had gone up to Johns Hopkins where Jill was also being treated. And the head of pediatric neurology up there, Dr. Vining, looked at her, how bad she was, how terrible. And she said, you know, she said, there's just something else wrong here. This girl does not have epilepsy.

She can't. And so she said, I made an appointment for you guys to go over to Kennedy Krieger Institute, which is right there at Hopkins, and see Dr. Kelly, Dr. Richard Kelly. And because maybe there's something genetically wrong. So we walked over to see him. And he wasn't taking any new patients, but he agreed to see us because Dr. Vining asked him to. And what I did not know, the guy has a MD in pediatrics and a PhD in genetics. And what I did not know is that he's like a world expert on genetic problems in children.

I didn't know this at the time. We walk in his office. He looks at Jill for just a few minutes. This guy's the smartest guy I ever met. I mean, I think I'm fairly smart.

And I mean, I don't mean that wrong. But I can't understand a word this guy's saying. I mean, he sits here and he talks to me like I'm understanding. And I'm shaking my head and I don't have a clue what he's saying. He's talking about genomes and hop this and hop that. And I'm like, you know, and it's English.

I know it's English because I can understand the words, but I can't understand a word this man's saying. But the encouraging thing is he understands what he's saying. You know what I'm saying? So, anyway, he looks at Jill for about 15 minutes and he goes, I know what's wrong with her. And I said, you do? He said, yeah. I said, you know what's wrong? I said, you hadn't even like looked in her throat or anything, you know?

He's like, it doesn't matter. I know what's wrong with her. Now, you got to understand, we would ask other people like Dr. Vining, what's wrong with Jill? And she would say to us, Jill has a nasty seizure problem. Well, I know that.

You know, I don't need to pay you to tell me that. But what's wrong with her? Nobody knew. He said, she's got mitochondrial disease.

I've got about 10 or 12 people here in Washington that have it. I didn't know at the time. He was the world's expert and still is today on mitochondrial disease in children. And he said, I bet my reputation, my career, that's what she's got. I said, okay. I said, well, can we fix it? He said, no, I'm sorry, we can't fix it. He said, well, we can't treat it.

And he said, I've been treating it and I've developed this cocktail of amino acids, coenzyme Q10, all this other stuff that we give these children. And he said, we're going to put Jill on it. He said, and I promise you, in one month, she is going to be a completely different human being. Friends, I've got to tell you, in one month, Jill was back up on her feet walking. Jill was pulling herself back off from the ground up to a standing position.

Jill was sitting in a chair all by herself without needing a strap. I mean, you talk about a miracle and an answer from God. Praise the Lord.

Huh? Praise the Lord. And I told him on the telephone, yet when I talked to him, well, we just talked to him this past week. And I said, I just want to remind you, Dr. Kelly, you are God's miracle to my daughter and our family. And he laughed. He never laughs at anything. But I think I caught him so off guard he didn't know what else to do. I said, you are. You're our miracle. I don't think he believes in God. But it's too bad.

He should. So then Jill started getting better. And to make a long story short, the seizures began dropping off.

I mean, now she'll have one seizure a month or two a month, not eight a day. And because of that, she's been able to gain a lot of skills that I never believed Jill would ever gain. She has a picture board and tech talk that she uses to communicate what she wants to do. She collects the mail from the front door because it comes in through the front door, has a little wicker basket in the foyer, carries it over to where it's supposed to go, empties the basket, takes it back in, puts it in the foyer and then kicks it back onto the table. I don't know where she learned that. I never thought her to do that. She separates silverware that comes out of the dishwasher, gets all the knives, all the forks and all the spoons, big spoons separate from little spoons in the drawer, never gets it wrong. She feeds herself now. We make the food, but she sits there with the fork and feeds herself.

I mean, I never would have believed it if you'd have told me. But Jill is still severely disabled. She's still a 24-7 care person. I mean, she can't dress herself. She can't make her food.

Jill would freeze to death. She doesn't know to put a coat on when she goes outside. If she kicks the covers off at night, she doesn't know to pull them back up over her. When we find her in the morning in a little ball shivering in bed because she doesn't know to pull the blankets back up. She wears a diaper all day. Now, if you take her to the potty every two hours, she'll stay clean and dry, but you've got to take her to the potty. She doesn't know to go by herself.

And you've just got to keep your eye on her. I had a neighbor a couple of years ago that came to the front door. It was January. The snow on the ground rang the front doorbell. I went to the door and the lady said, I think Jill is out. I said, what do you mean Jill's out? She said, well, I was driving around the cul-de-sac and I'm pretty sure I saw Jill. She said she had no coat on. It's January in the snow.

No coat, no socks, no shoes. And I saw her. She's just walking down the street with a big smile on her face.

I said, what? So I went running around the house looking for Jill. She wasn't anywhere to be seen. Threw my shoes on, went running down the street. She saw me coming and speeded up, going down the street, started laughing at me. I'm like, Jill, get back here.

Where are you going? Where was this girl going? I mean, folks, Jill would have fallen in a ditch or fallen in a creek and frozen to death.

She doesn't know where she is. So anyway, you say, well, why didn't you ever pray and ask God to heal Jill? Well, friends, I did.

Thousands of times. I would say, Lord, what is the deal here? I mean, we're serving you. I'm pastoring a church and trying to do it in a Christlike way. We're trying to raise our family in a Christlike way. You know, we're trying to have a Godly marriage. I'm trying to be a Godly man. I mean, Lord, why are you doing this to us?

I don't get this. And I'm asking you to heal my daughter and take all of this away. I prayed that hundreds of times, thousands of times. And God kept saying, no, not doing it. You know, there reminds me of another guy in the Bible that prayed really hard for God to take something away. And God told him no. You know who I'm thinking about? The apostle Paul.

That's right. Listen to what he said. He said, 2 Corinthians 12, I know a man in Christ, he's talking about himself, who 14 years ago, whether in the body I do not know or out of the body I do not know, God knows such a man was caught up into the third heaven. You say, Lord, what in the world is that? Well, how do I know?

I've never been there. I don't know what the third heaven is. And I know how such a man, whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows, was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words which a man is not permitted to speak. We understand what Paul's saying here, right?

The stuff he saw was so magnificent, God said, you're not allowed to go back and talk about it. Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations that I saw for this reason, Paul says, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me to keep me from exalting myself. What was this thorn in the flesh?

We don't know for sure. A lot of people based on the book of Galatians think it might be bad eyesight, but we don't know. But whatever it was, it tormented Paul.

It was not a fun thing. And why did God do this to him? To keep him from exalting himself. What does the Bible say? God is opposed to the proud. So since the apostle Paul was to go on and write 48% of the New Testament, how in the world could God use him to do this if he became arrogant, if he became haughty, you know, too big for his britches? So God says, I got to keep you humble, Paul, so I can use you to do what I put you on earth to do.

And that's why I gave you this painful thing. And by the way, please notice that in Paul's mind, even though he calls it a messenger of Satan, in his mind he is convinced this is from the Lord. This is not from Satan.

I am convinced that Jill is in my life and our family's life because God put her there just the way she is. A lot of us have listened to this theology on television or radio where we hear these guys say, well Satan did it and God just allowed it in his permissive will. Folks, if that's your theology, may I say with all due respect, then your theology is incorrect.

It is wrong. That is not what the Bible teaches at all. Amos 5 says, can there be evil in a city and the Lord not have sent it? Read the story of Job about how God put specific limits on Satan. You can do this to Job.

You can't do this to Job. So whether Satan did it or not, who was really in charge of what happened to Job? Well, it wasn't Satan.

It was God. I'm convinced Jill is in our life the way she is because this is God's will for Jill and God's will for our life. And you know, I'm glad Jill is there because I believe that God looked at me and said, Lon, you above everybody else, you need this. I'm going to put this in your life because you need it. Because with the success that I want to give McLean Bible Church, I believe the Lord said, Lon, if I do that, you are going to get arrogant, you are going to get haughty, you are going to get too big for your britches and you are going to end up in the ditch, Solomon, like so many other people have ended up. You are going to be unfaithful to your family, unfaithful to your calling.

You are never going to make it. And so I've got to send something into your life that keeps you from exalting yourself. I'm good with that. I understand that.

I didn't understand that 21 years ago, but I got that now. Paul said, concerning this, I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. Hey, you think the apostle Paul had a good prayer life? What do you think?

I do. In fact, if I was going to look for somebody here on earth to pray for me, if I couldn't find the Lord Jesus himself, I'd go next to the apostle Paul. So it wasn't something wrong with his prayer life, but God said no three times. Then God said to me, no, Paul, not taking it away, but my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.

You say, what does that mean? Well, it means that when we're weak, we depend 100% on God's power and then we're strong. But when we think we're strong and we're like, it's okay, God, I don't really need you on this one.

I got this one. We're weak. You understand what he's saying? Now watch, most gladly, Paul says, therefore, I will boast about my weaknesses so the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, insults, distresses, persecutions, and difficulties for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Paul said, I'm okay with this thorn in the flesh because now I understand why I've got it to keep me from exalting myself. And the fact that God said no to me is right. Listen, folks, I've actually thought about writing a book entitled Sometimes God Says No. I don't think I'll sell many copies of that book, but that's what the Bible teaches. Sometimes God says no.

And you know why? It's very simple. God is not Santa Claus. God is not the genie in the lamp where you rub him and you get three wishes.

No, no. God is our Heavenly Father and as such, he is out to raise us to be godly children. And that means sometimes in our life we don't always get what we want. I mean, you raise children. Ice cream's great, yeah? And sometimes your children need ice cream. Ah, but sometimes your children need broccoli and carrots and cauliflower and kale and collard greens and mustard greens.

I'm from the south. Can you all tell? And Brussels sprouts. How many of you guys like Brussels sprouts? Oh, God bless you.

I didn't think there'd be that many of us. I love Brussels sprouts. Look, the next time we have a potluck, we're going to make us some Brussels sprouts. We're going to make it the old southern way.

We're going to put bacon fat in it and we're going to put onions in it. Yeah. Yeah. And we're going to all arrive at heaven early. Yeah. All right.

Where are we here? But, you know, I would make my boys once a week, all three of them, eat Brussels sprouts. And I'd make Brenda do the same thing. And she hates Brussels sprouts. But I'd make her sit at the table and eat them because I'd say, Brenda, now, you know, we can't ask the boys to do something that you're not willing to do.

And she complained more than all three of the boys put together. It was the best evening of the week for me. It was.

I loved that night. Well, that's another issue. Okay.

So, but friends, the point is, God is our Heavenly Father. And He looked at me and said, you know, Solomon, there are a lot of things that I'm capable of doing with your life, son. But the way you are in 1992, I can't do them with you. It'll ruin you. So I'm going to have to put some things in your life that you are not going to like. But they're going to enable me to fulfill my plan for your life. And so when you ask me to take them away, I'm afraid I'm just going to have to tell you no.

The answer is no. Now, let me end with one verse of scripture. Matthew chapter 11. Jesus said, take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Now, the picture here is of two animals, normally oxen, pulling a plow and being in a yoke together. And the way they would do it in the ancient Near East is they would put an experienced ox on one side. And then they'd put a neophyte, a newbie ox on the other side. And the idea was that the newbie was supposed to learn by marching next to this experienced ox how to do this. So they got the yoke on. But think about this now. If the newbie went too slow, the yoke was no longer easy and light.

Why? Because the experienced ox is pulling forward and that yoke is pulling on the head of that newbie and it's hurting. And if the newbie tried to go too fast, his yoke was an easier light. Because the experienced ox is going slower and pulling that yoke back on the shoulders and hurting that newbie ox.

And if the newbie is trying to go left or right, that yoke is hurting him because the experienced ox is staying straight on. It was only when the newbie learned to walk in perfect cadence with that experienced ox, in perfect lockstep, that the yoke became easy and the burden became light because the experienced ox was carrying a big part of that yoke. You understand what I'm saying to you? Yes?

Okay. Well, Jesus said take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Jesus said when we come to Christ, we go into a yoke with him for the rest of our lives.

He's on one side, we're on the other. And just like that ox, that newbie, the idea is we have to learn if we want our yoke to be easy and our burden to be light, we have to learn how to walk in perfect cadence with Lord Jesus. We've got to walk in perfect lockstep with him.

When we try to go too slow, too fast, too far right, too far left, the yoke gets heavy. But when we're walking in perfect rhythm with Christ, timing, will, choices for our life, everything, the yoke is easy and the burden is light. It doesn't mean life isn't hard sometimes, but it means his grace is sufficient.

Isn't that what he told Paul? I'm here to tell you after 21 years of raising Jill, his grace was sufficient. It wasn't easy, but Brenda and I are still standing. Praise the Lord.

Our marriage is still standing 39 years. Praise the Lord. I'm still pastoring McLean Bible Church by the grace of God. Praise the Lord.

My children have all grown up to walk with Christ and raising their children to walk with Christ. Praise the Lord. God's grace was sufficient.

It was. So let's talk about you now because many of you have been right where I was. I don't pray for Jill to be healed anymore. If God does it, great. But I kind of understand this is the way it's supposed to be, and I'm okay with that.

I really am. But many of us here, I'm sure, are praying, Lord, you've got to change this, and you've got to change that, and this needs to be different, and Lord, please take this away, and Lord, please take that away. And God's saying no. He's either saying no, I'm never going to do it, or no, I'm not going to do it right now, but regardless of that, he's saying no. And we don't like that, and we get upset, and we get angry, and we accuse him of some really ugly things. And what we don't get is that it's just us in the yoke as the newbie just trying to go our own way instead of looking over and figuring out what's the cadence he's going at and having the wisdom to surrender ourselves and say, this is what I've got to get in step with over here.

You with me? So friends, I promise you, the Lord Jesus knows best for you. He knows better for you than you'll ever know for you.

He knew better for me. And if we'll just get in step with him and stop trying to tell him how to do things, but let him make the decision. We'll look back one day and shake our head in the affirmative and say, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

He had the pace, not me. So that's our challenge as believers in Jesus. That's our goal.

Figure out where the Lord's going and get in step with him, and we'll just walk in step with him, trusting him that our yoke will be easy, our burden will be light, and his grace will be sufficient. That's what he said. And at least my experience has been that he's telling the truth, and he'll tell the truth to you too. Now, let me close with just one last thought. You know, I've had a lot of people maybe hear me make some of these statements and say, yeah, but what about Jill, Lon? I mean, that's great.

I'm happy for you. Jill came into your life. She kept you from completely messing your life up and, you know, whatever. And this is all great, and God's used her, but how is all of this fair to Jill? I mean, it's great for you, but how is this fair to her? I mean, how is this equitable for her? You know, well, I thought a lot about that, and I want to say two things in response. Number one, the first thing we've got to remember is we can't judge Jill's life by our life.

That is so wrong. Friends, let me tell you something. Jill is one of the happiest human beings I've ever met in my life. She doesn't know she's disabled. You know, people feed her, get her dressed, give her a bath, take care of everything, wash her clothes, ride around wherever she wants to go, give her whatever she needs, comb her hair for her in the morning. I mean, she's the happiest person in the world. Jill's always got a smile on her face. And I want to tell you, she's much happier than you are, I promise you that, much happier than you are. Yeah, so let's be careful here that we don't judge her reality by ours. And she doesn't have to pay one bill. Never, ever.

But on a more serious level. You say, yeah, Lon, but look at all the things Jill didn't get to do. She didn't get to be on a swim team. She didn't get to do ballet. She didn't get to play the piano. She didn't get to go shopping with Brenda. She's not going to get married. You know, just look at all this.

She didn't go to the prom. Fair enough. I understand that. But friends, I firmly believe God doesn't settle everything on this side of eternity. I believe God settles up on the other side a lot of things that don't get settled on this side. And there's a lot of injustice in our world that doesn't seem to get settled up here. People seem to get away with it. Nah, nobody's getting away, folks. God's going to settle that up. There's a lot of unrighteous things that are done here in our world people seem to get away with.

Don't you worry about it. God's going to settle that up. And friends, God's going to settle up with Jill. And when she gets to heaven because she was willing to live the life that she lived down here for the purposes of God, to serve God and advance God's plan, I believe God's going to reward her in ways that are just going to be so beyond anything He ever rewards me with that it's going to be staggering.

And I have this picture in heaven of Jill being way up high somewhere, really near the Lord Jesus, and looking down and saying, hey, Lord, that's my daddy way down there. Can he come up here with me because he served me? Would you mind if I brought him up a little bit from way down where he is?

I really believe that's going to happen. So anyway, I appreciate you all listening. I appreciate your kind attention. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you know we all struggle with being the newbie ox in the oak. In fact, even when we aren't newbies anymore, we're still problems in the oak because we're willful and we're fleshly and we want to do it our way. And we always got a suggestion. Lord Jesus, teach us the wisdom of walking in lockstep with you and learning to surrender what we want to what you want in the absolute and full assurance that you know what's best for us.

Timing wise, you know what's best for us in terms of the things you let into our life and the things you don't. And that our yoke will be easy, our burden will be light, and your grace will be sufficient if we'll just learn to walk in step with you. So help us do that, Lord. And I thank you so much for the Word of God today that encourages our hearts. For many people here today who've been struggling, Lord, lift their spirits with knowing that there's not a thing in their life that's an accident. I don't care how tragic it may be.

It's all part of your plan and you will settle up with every one of us. If you don't do it here, you will do it in eternity. Give us hope because of these great truths. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen. Amen.