Do you realize how pervasive chronic disease is in our day? According to the CDC, “Chronic diseases are defined broadly as conditions that last 1 year or more and require ongoing medical attention or limit activities of daily living or both. 6 in 10 Americans have at least one chronic disease, and 4 in 10 have two or more chronic diseases.” While some of these conditions are honestly self-inflicted, the only thing more prevalent than chronic disease is what is unhealthy in the rest of us that attempts to fills in the gaps with insensitive assumptions, short-sighted remedies, or even pious judgmentalism.
Trying to support a person struggling with internal and external struggles that feel like they will never end is a real and overwhelming challenge that I am only beginning to understand better. While we who are on the outside looking in truly mean well, what we say and do-especially as the pain, sorrow, and isolation stretch on with no definitive answers/antidotes in sight-often has the exact opposite effect of what we sincerely intend. Like the woman with issue of blood for 12 years where those who tried to help her, we who claim to care for the chronic sufferer can only compound issues by piling on in a way that results in “suffering many things, nothing bettered, and only grew worse” (Mk. 5:26). The question is how do we not be in that group along with Job’s “miserable counselors” (Job 16:2)?
This recent post captures it so well: “What I keep seeing – is how we’ve created an unspoken rule in our churches that pain needs to be quickly followed by a spiritual band-aid statements. Someone shares their grief, then rushes to add “but God is in control” or “I know God doesn’t give me more than I can handle.” It’s as if they’re apologizing for their pain, trying to make their suffering more acceptable to the rest of us…You don’t need to make your struggles more palatable for others…Sometimes life is just hard and acknowledging that truth takes more faith than denying it. And you don’t need to dress it up in spiritual language to make it acceptable for others to hear. Church: Let’s be a community where real struggles can be shared honestly, where we can mourn together, and where comfort comes not from quick fixes but from being truly heard and held in our pain.”
Instead of answering that question in a “do 1, 2, and 3 and avoid 4, 5, and 6,” I am going to share how I am learning to approach this scenario in the real life, going-on-five -years struggle of my own son. (Here are more on the specifics of this #healthforlandon journey if you haven’t been tracking with our family.) While I wish that lessons I am learning weren’t at the expense of my own son’s comfort and vitality, I am determined to steward them well by sharing them with you…for the benefit of the other “Landon’s” around me and in your life, family, church, and community who need a more considerate, compassionate version of comforter you.
To get the full feel of it in away that I pray will help you get better in real time and space, do two things:
1) Watch this video clip. (Heidi and I spent a recent Sunday night watching through tear-blurred eyes this segment that snuck up on our hearts/home.)
2) Read the following text from me to my son that followed. (If you skipped the video to get to this part of the post, please go back and watch it first to get the full context/import. The summary words in parentheses that advocate for never less but always more than empathy is for your clarification…not included in the original text.)
Sorry for the lengthy text, but I watched this video last night that brought me to tears as I considered the parallels to your current struggles. While you may not be dealing with crisis level urgency of this downed pilot, your chronic struggles are just as existentially significant and real.
Here are a few feeble-on-my-part takeaways that I have been thinking on and pray will steady and encourage you:
“The best way to describe that event was getting hit by a freight train.” (Validation)
I just want to say that I continue to be amazed out how you push through all the “hits” you have had to absorb/process both physically, emotionally, and mentally. I will not even pretend to understand fully how disorienting and overwhelming all of this has been as a such a tender age and crucial season of life. May you never feel from me anything but respect and empathy for what you alone shoulder day after day.
“After they ejected, they found themselves separated and alone on the ground in the rugged Iranian desert.” (Personal Responsibility)
One of the hardest parts of this journey has been watching how-despite your best efforts-this journey has brought isolation from family/friends that neither of us would wish on our worst enemy. While it is tough to have so little interaction with you/we made some early mistakes on this front, Mom and I know that you are doing your best on this front, respect the space you need, and love you/think about you more than ever. Any diversions I participate in outside of the home are not because I have forgotten you but because they are my duty or allow me to be the best version of myself for you.
“Lord, your will be done. But if I’m getting through this I need help.” (Dependence)
May I begin by admitting that this part has been hard for me as a Dad who would rather take the hit himself than let his son keep suffering in ways that I cannot fix on my own. Hence the need to give space for God to work in you and through others who know much more than me. If I am honest, this area of your journey has been the hardest to not worry about or over-interject myself…the spiritual piece of it. I don’t know what communication is happening between you and the God who has to feel unfair, uncaring, or worse by now, but…I see you staying open to the help that He is unmistakably, persistently sending your way. May I encourage you that He is only a prayer away from wherever today finds you…and He has been busy answering a ton of them that you probably know little to nothing of in the peripherals of all that we continue to need as a family.
“I wasn’t focused on the speed that I was falling but on fixing the problems that were in front of me.” (Selfcare)
Just so you know, I see you being so intentional with your energy/focus to make it through each moment. Please know that I will do anything I can to take something off your plate that you can’t/shouldn’t be focused upon…to give space for you to do/be what only you can for yourself. (In the extended interview, the pilot talks about that he wisely “communicated with the friendlies only when it was not taking away from his efforts to evade the enemy and take care of his physical needs.”). I am the biggest fan of your being strategic with what physical, emotional, and relational abilities you possess on any given day.
“A modern day miracle. I believe that it’s a testament to God’s provision in my life to bring me through that moment in a way that didn’t prevent injuries but catastrophic ones that would have hindered my ability to survive.” (Faith)
I know we have yet to see THE miracle we are all waiting for, long for, and-maybe at this point-struggling to believe is still possible, but the fact that your “injuries” have not stopped you from believing/moving forward is a miracle…maybe a greater one in a very real sense. I regularly talk to your friends/others who sincerely ask, “How is Landon,” and they are overwhelmed by the resiliency that you exhibit that feels “next to impossible” to them, AKA miracle-level material. I hope you will choose to see/savor the daily miracles that God is sustaining us with until the big one comes.
“The safest place to go was up…despite his injuries. How did you climb 7,000 feet with your injuries? Never let a lack of motivation put you on Iranian TV.” (Perseverance)
This is not to add any pressure whatsoever, but your choice to climb out of bed in the morning, take a shower, eat food, work your online job, be courteous to your family/others shows that you still care about what your life-with all of its challenges-says to others. Your refusal to be exhibit A of someone who gave up/checked out is truly encouraging others more than you can possibly imagine…starting with me!
“When I got to the moment where I could review and think about all that I gone through, I sent ‘God is good’ as a recognition of all that He had brought me through.” (Gratitude)
This heart position towards God started to help/heal the pilot long before military rescuers showed up. Believing in God’s “goodness” with all that has gone badly/differently than we would have hoped/prayed for you continues to be a struggle. But I choose to not doubt His character and purpose, and I pray that you are able to do the same. This choice and conviction alone is the way out as we together lean into what we often struggle to feel on this front. While we would love to testify of God’s goodness by what He has delivered us OUT OF, we are currently an undeniable testimony of what His goodness can bring sufferers THROUGH.
“To stage the rescue, the CIA launched a multi-pronged campaign.” (Support)
I know that after so many different angles and consultations over these last years, you must have “white coat syndrome” as they call it at this point. Though many must have felt like detours or dead ends, thank you for staying open to the strategy of a “multi-pronged” attack wherever it leads. Over and over I have watched you take the “next step” without unrealistic or too specific of expectations. So wise beyond your years! May God grant you the ability to stay open to this approach in the days ahead.
“In order to get out one, there almost 100 others on the ground…What you need to know is that we would have sent more to go get the back seater.” (Commitment)
Please know that Mom and I—along with countless others who have supported you—would do these last years all over again and more to be there for you. You are not a burden to shoulder or inconvenience to tolerate. You, as my son and human being created and Redeemed by God Himself, are still worth whatever it takes! As long as we all stay open to a team approach, WE got this.
“Bravo was in American hands but not out of danger. The rescue planes’ landing gear was stuck in the desert sand.” (Patience)
What an example of the phases of rescue and recovery. As we are finding, getting through one stage of this health journey tends to lead to getting stuck in another. Though you are sweet and thoughtful in not assuming anything, we are always ready/willing to go through the next one with you…as long and as many of them as it takes.
“Rescued as the sun rose on Easter Sunday.” (Hope)
Not to over spiritualize it, but how interesting the timing of this rescue for a guy who clearly is a man of faith in the Living Jesus. Here’s a insightful little story that I recently came across in my studies on depression that you know the dark, persistent shadows of much better than me:
My parents had just begun to build their dream home in the country, and they were so excited to watch the progress that they moved into an old trailer next to the building site. But before one nail was driven, my mom had a fatal heart attack. Dad loved Mom so much that he would have been terminally dispirited without someone occupying “her chair.” So I moved in with him. I left my home, my job, and my friends to live in the middle of nowhere in a derelict trailer, which seemed porous to every creepy, crawling species of insect native to Texas. Worse, the shadow of my mother’s death was “like the sky—it spread over everything.” It blighted any vestige of joy and left me wondering whether the heavy cloak of depression that seemed to swallow me whole would ever lift. But then God used my little dog Baxter to show me that it would. On the night of a new moon, when a swath of clouds masked the steering stars, Baxter ran from the trailer into the woods after some varmint that proved too tantalizing for his terrier instincts. I was away visiting friends, so my dad took his flashlight and went to find my beloved dog. Well into his search, the flashlight battery died. There he was in pitch black, surrounded by a thick overgrowth of scrub trees, ravines, and old barbed wire fences, without a heavenly body for light or compass. When I came home the next morning, I found Dad sitting in his easy chair, drinking a cup of coffee in perfect peace, with one sheepish little dog at his feet. After regaling me with his harrowing tale, I asked, “What did you do?” He looked at me almost quizzically and said, “I just sat down.” “You just sat down?” I asked. “Yes, Margaret. I knew the sun would come up in the morning.” There was the answer. In the deepest, seemingly inescapable nightfall, the sun always rises.
“I was really proud of her (his wife) and grateful for the strength that she had shown.” (Thoughtfulness)
As your primary supporter/caregiver, Mom is the one you should be most grateful for…a truth I am sure you already fully recognize and have even articulated to her repeatedly. You and I both know that if this depended only on you and me, we would be much further away from the answers/healing than we are. May I encourage you to keep affirming her when you feel prompted/able to do so…not because you “owe her” but because it keeps her and, therefore, you moving sweetly forward together.
“This is not a story about what I went through. It is a story of the teamwork, of the training, of the faith, of the decisions and the leadership to do something that will live in history of what America is willing to do to uphold it’s promise to LEAVE NO MAN BEHIND.” (Value)
I know that last thing you want is for this journey to put the spotlight upon you, and I agree with that priority. With that being said, this is a unique opportunity that none of us would have chosen to show the lengths to which people who love each other will go to be there for each other…with heaven’s help. Please know that Mom and I will continue to do anything in our power and beyond to make sure that your body, soul, mind, heart, and the future connected to all of them are not left behind in the wearisome, stranding “sand” of this journey!
My prayer continues to be that I-as your father and friend-will be a source of hope and not discouragement, invalidation, or judgment. May we both say with the Psalmist, “Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance.”
How did Landon respond? Well most of it is his story to share, but the initial response from a guy who will rarely reply back or at least it takes awhile at this point was, “Thanks for the nice things u said, I appreciate you sharing it. I tried to read all of it haha.” (There is a lot in that succinct response that you miss if you are not carefully attentive-gratitude, affection, affirmation, and even…a stab a humor.) To summarize all that from the caregiver’s side of things which is our focus, for once…his still-figuring-it-out dad got it right, and the above, a-bit-verbose text landed and blessed him!
Just this morning, I came across this insightful thought in our want-it-all-right-now world, “You cannot force fruit in a season meant for roots.” Maybe the waiting is to help you grow deeper in your understanding where you just want results. What could God unlock even in others if you/me would learn OUR LESSONS hitherto ignored? Here are a few recommended resources to deep those roots on your theology with the “problem of pain” as C.S. Lewis coined it:
- When Hurt Won’t Heal: Learning to Live with Chronic Illness, Craig K. Svennson
- Chronic Illness: Walking by Faith (31-Day Devotionals for Life), Esther Smith
- Disrupted Journey: Walking with Your Loved One Through Chronic Pain and Illness, Nate Brooks
Instead of focusing upon making yourself comfortable with others confounding suffering, may I advocate for a tone and demeanor that works to convey the emotional lifelines of validation, personal responsibility, dependence, selfcare, faith, perseverance, gratitude, support, commitment, patience, hope, thoughtfulness, and value that alone can rescue the “downed pilot” in your own sphere of influence.
These qualities to model and foster are built upon the bedrock of the following truth from Jared Wilson, “Every ounce of Christian suffering will be compensated for with millions of years of rest, and still more besides. This suffering will be merely a blip on the radar of an eternity of peace, a grain of sand compared to the global beaches of God’s comfort in the world to come.” We as the caregiver will likely have to believe it before and more consistently than the one currently worn down by pain, grief, and isolation.
My sincere prayer is that one day soon my Landon and yours will be able to read this post (at a time as real as when this was originally sent from yours truly trying to figure it out on September 14, 2026 at 11:30 AM) and agree that-by God’s grace-we, as the caregivers/advocates/friends, got this more right than not…and God, us, them came out of the darkness and despair TOGETHER!
Photo by Fer Troulik on Unsplash
