Immanuel

“There’s an app for that.”

We all remember this common slogan as the smartphone gradually infiltrated every aspect of our lives less than two decades ago, as if to suggest it, or the apps for which it served as a vehicle, could provide answers to almost any of our problems.

Equally prevalent, or so it would seem from the abundance of pharmaceutical commercials targeting specific demographics in between your favorite shows, is the suggestion that “there’s a pill for that.”

I personally don’t hold fast to such an idea, but I am more of a believer than I once was when it comes to the condition of ADHD, which afflicts our youngest. After we tackled the problem with behavioral techniques and strategies, it was evident after a grade level or two that he simply needed help we couldn’t provide in order to get him successfully through the school day. So, we took the medicinal plunge, and the results were clear and immediate. We were pleased to witness a calm and poised version of himself as he found the ability to maintain focus as academic success was soon to follow.

Most early pediatric drugs assume liquid form and are typically tasty and easy to swallow. Pills in any shape or form, however, are a challenge for children, as any parent could tell you as their own come of age. It’s not uncommon for capsules to travel swiftly back up little throats for no other reason than the fear or sensation of choking. Swallowing a tablet is a learned skill. Some grow into adulthood still uncomfortable with the effort.

Our son recently graduated to the pill form of his medication, and pinpointing the correct dosage during the transition was its own special problem, requiring a brief time away from school till the doctor got it right. He simply couldn’t help functioning as a classroom distraction without it, much to his teachers’ consternation, though we, and they, would gladly refer to him at least as a “happy” mess. Once the dosage puzzle was solved, he returned, and all seemed right once again with the world.

Until it wasn’t, that is. Not too terribly long after, we began to notice inconsistencies with the medication, which he routinely took before school. Periodically, his teachers informed us of the same, tired behavioral issues in class, none of which were major but nonetheless required addressing. We called the doctor and waited for a follow-up to discuss alternatives. In the meantime, I made sure to observe our son taking his pill each morning just to be sure. And sure enough, I watched him ingest it and move on with the morning.

Kids are crafty, however. Our son, I discovered, craftier still. Transferring his laundry from the washer to the dryer one afternoon, I observed what appeared to be a few empty capsule shells that bore a striking resemblance to the size and shape of his pills. I resolved to watch him like a hawk thereafter and check above and beneath his tongue, baffled at how he could possibly fool me while I observed him swallowing it each morning. I didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

Another morning, another pill. Seated at the table after finishing his breakfast sandwich, he places it in his mouth and swallows it with the juice I provided. I ask if he got it down, and he nods. For only a moment I turn in the opposite direction but then quickly pivot my attention back, catching him in the act of slipping his fingers up to his lower lip in a surreptitious attempt to remove the pill and discard it in a secret corner elsewhere in the house. The little sneak had been hiding them randomly in his cheek rather than swallowing, which explained the medication’s bizarre inconsistency. Mystery solved.

“Fool me twice . . .,” as the saying goes. I wouldn’t be shamed again. Having had no success with threats of consequences or demands up to that point, I impatiently relinquished command of the ensuing drama as mom took a turn and sat down directly across from him at the breakfast table to ensure gently that he got the job done. “But it’s hard!” was the incessant, tortured refrain as he objected with each failed swallow, risking us all, including his older sister, to be tardy to each of our morning destinations.

Mom’s time managing the situation came to an end as her job required her to get herself on the road and to the office. As she exited, our son motioned me to the now empty chair opposite his. We weren’t finished and he simply wanted me to stay with him as he suffered through it.

I resolved to try a different, more patient approach and reasoned with him. It wasn’t as if the pill was larger than anything else he’d downed before; quite the contrary. By his own admission, he was afraid of choking, and despite gulp after endless gulp, the pill remained because he was still telling the pill with his tongue to remain exactly where it was. “Don’t be afraid. You’re not going to choke.” After 30 long minutes, my reassurances finally made headway, and down it went, his expression at long last relaxing. I pried both under tongue and around cheeks “like a dentist,” he later described to mom, ensuring there was nowhere else to hide, and off he went to school. Eight hours later I would pick him up and hear him proudly share that his teachers praised him as the best behaved student in class that day. I inquired to him as to why he thought that might be, and his knowing smirk gave him away as he remembered the difficult but necessary ordeal of the morning. Sometimes, you just have to swallow that pill.

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Hematidrosis, it’s called, a very rare medical condition in which one sweats drops of blood. It seems only fitting, then, that the gospel of Luke, ostensibly the only physician of the bunch, would be the one both to observe and document this phenomenon in his account of Christ’s agonized prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me,” he says, as we are allowed a unique glimpse into his humanity, asking, as many of us often do, that God simply remove a difficulty from our lives rather than, more nobly, provide us with the strength and fortitude to endure it. Even Jesus, it appears, had a moment when he just wanted God to remove the problem. Forget how I might grow spiritually from this experience; just be the doting father that you are and take this pain away, dad.

I think had my son exhibited symptoms of hematidrosis that morning at the breakfast table, I would most certainly have ceased altogether from sheer alarm that the intense stress was causing him an actual physiological loss of blood. Christ had no such luck, however. His “pill” was his to swallow and his alone. And his Father stood by to hear his request while retaining the requirement.

I find it curious that Christ chose the image of a cup to describe what awaited him. His was a challenge to ingest, to consume something inside of himself, not merely outside of him, as in a temporal passing from one moment to the next, quickly forgotten as the next moment arrives. Though we would argue theologically that God never changes, his trial would alter things both without and within. It had to if we were to receive redemption ourselves.

God, his Father, was with him, however, even as he himself was prophesied as Immanuel — God with us — while he lived and acted in the here and now.

Presently, I have found myself struggling with the reality of “God with us,” especially when it’s the only answer you receive to your trouble, great or small as it may be. It can feel like a cheap non-answer until you understand and grasp that Christ himself in the garden didn’t get a better deal either.

I and my wife have dealt with a unique parenting challenge for much longer than we would prefer, and I’ve lost count of the number of times my faith has faltered just for the fact that the problem remains and an easy solution fails to present itself. I just want to feel better. I want God to swoop in and fix it, just as instantaneously as baptismal waters fashion a “new creation” after one rises from the surface. But the change has yet to come, and we remain years now into the cup still before us with no promise of a favorable end, or an end at all.

When my son pointed me to the empty chair in front of him, however, God used the “inconvenient” situation to teach me a thing or two. Though he continued to complain and struggle, his gesture communicated, “If I really must do this, then at least just be here with me while I endure it.” As I sat down, I shifted my own approach and told him not to be afraid, knowing, as his father, he had nothing really to be afraid of. Once he chose to believe me, it wasn’t long thereafter that the pill slid comfortably down his throat and began the work of change.

I have to imagine it’s little different with our often unwanted, divinely-ordained circumstances. I am admittedly afraid at times of what is or is not to come, and my imagination casts no shortage of worst-case scenarios. But as I sat there reassuring him of what he knew he needed to do, my mind casted no shortage of scriptural reminders of “fear not” and “I am with you.” The reminders themselves, no doubt, were evidence of his presence even then.

One of my favorite songs of my youth bears more meaning to me 30 years later. A gentle tune titled “Higher Ways,” by Steven Curtis Chapman, the lyrics tell of the singer’s wish to understand God’s higher purpose in circumstances both great and small and the hope of one day, on the other side, learning of the elusive bigger picture. It finishes:

But until I’m with you
I’ll be here
with a heart that is true
and a soul that’s resting on 
your higher ways.

Simple solutions and quick answers can be hard to come by in the kingdom of God. We all want it, but we seldom get it. Maturity and trust within a relationship are the goal; not merely my comfort and ease. There is no app or pill for it. But God help me to remember that there is a prayer for it.