One of the first things we discovered about S, even before we brought him home to the U.S., was that he loved to run.

“Najababayo!,”* he’d shriek as he’d tear off, fully expecting someone to come chasing after him. We chased him around the house multiple times a day, slowing our pace to match his in order to support the delusion in his 3-year-old mind that he’s the fastest human on the planet, never to be caught. He would cackle in delight.

The love of being pursued. While I can’t be sure why this child who is my son but not from my womb loved it so much, I can take a decent guess.

I remember a time when we took him to a park near our neighborhood, not too long after bringing him home. After playing several rounds of Najababayo in an open field, J and I started to head towards a big shady tree for some relief from the sun. S was oblivious to this and was happily running around until he looked back to see he was alone on the field. “Wait for me!” he cried in his broken English, his high-pitched plea carrying in the air as his little legs scurried beneath him towards the safety of our presence.

He’s 10 now, and while 3 is now a distant memory, I’m surprised at how often I still here him say these words. In the grocery store, from the back yard, on the playground or hiking trail. “Wait for me!” – still loud and high-pitched, followed by the same scurry to catch up as he leaves behind the creeping caterpillar he was examining in the dirt.

The fear of abandonment; of being left behind. I recognize a degree of this lingering in S’s heart. I know how it feels.

Throughout my life, I have experienced varying degrees of being “left behind.” Cancer and its aftermath have particularly sharpened this experience for me.

Some of it is passive, like watching people in our chronological life stage from the sidelines, healthily progressing through the stages in natural order – pregnancy and family building, corporate ladders, financial planning and savings.

Other experiences are more active. Employers, passing on me for opportunities because my health can limit my abilities and availability. Friends, omitting me from conversations and plans, assuming I wouldn’t be able to relate or join in. Family, keeping distance for reasons that are probably too complex to put in words and feels like a slow, painful fading of our names from their hearts.

I don’t blame anyone for these things – after all, the only human who has promised never to leave me behind is my husband – but in my heart, I ache in secret.

Wait for me. I often cry this from a deep pit in my heart, to no one in particular.

Wait for me to be healthy again. I will work harder, try better, give more. Please don’t leave me behind. If I could just freeze time for everyone else, to give me some extra credit time to catch up.

I watch my brothers and sisters in Christ pouring out their time, energy and talents into kingdom-building work within our church, communities and throughout the world, and I rejoice yet weep.

Wait for me to be healthy again. I will work harder, try better, give more. Please don’t leave me behind.

I lay in bed, immobilized by pain or sickness or weakness or medication side effects – or a combination of them all. All I can do is stare out the window, watching the world and seasons pass me by, and I wonder if God has passed me by, as well.

Wait for me.
Have you left me behind, God?

In our darkest, loneliest moments, it can feel like God has left us behind. After all, Satan is the most skillful deceiver. But God’s word tells us that this is impossible.

“You have encircled me….” That’s what David says of God in Psalm 139:5 (CSB). I like that visual. He is all around me, a circle with no end or beginning in time or space. I am Enveloped. Hemmed in. Encircled. So snug and secure. I cannot slip away of his presence or stumble out of his protection.

Some days, in these strange valleys as I watch the seasons change and the world pass me by, I still cry silently to myself. Wait for me.

And God looks down on me with fatherly love.

You never have to ask me to wait for you, he says to me. Remember: I have encircled you.

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*Najababayo – “Catch me if you can.”