Bee Stings, Batteries, and Biopsies

As moms, so much of what we do is about keeping the wheels on.

We make the appointments. We remember who needs to be where and when. We know which child has practice, which bill needs to be paid, what needs to be bought at the grocery store, and approximately three thousand other details that somehow live permanently in the back of our minds.

We become the calm in the storm.

Or at least, we try very hard to be.

Because when something goes wrong, everyone looks to Mom. And I don’t necessarily mean that they expect us to have all the answers. But somewhere along the way, we have convinced ourselves that if we can just stay calm enough, organized enough, prepared enough, and caffeinated enough, we can keep everyone else from falling apart.

Most of the time, we can at least pretend we have it together.

But then there are days when life throws so many curveballs that you don’t even know which one you’re supposed to catch.

This weekend brought on one of those days.

It started with news that two people very close in our family would need biopsies. Two people we love. Two people whose names and faces immediately made our hearts hurt a little. And, as if one biopsy wasn’t enough to process, we learned that both would be happening on the exact same day.

There is something about the word biopsy that makes everything feel suddenly more serious. It is a word that leaves you sitting in the uncomfortable space between not knowing and knowing. You can’t fast-forward to the results. You can’t research your way into certainty. You can’t do anything to make the waiting go faster.

You just wait.

And apparently, waiting wasn’t going to be the only thing on our weekend agenda.

Because right around the same time we were trying to process the biopsy news, the batteries in my car and another family member’s car decided they had simply had enough.

At almost the exact same time.

I mean, really?

There are moments in life when you have to wonder if someone is writing a sitcom about you.

Two biopsies? Check.

Two dead car batteries? Check.

Emotional stability? Questionable.

At this point, we were all trying to keep track of who needed to be where, who was having what procedure, who needed a ride, and which car was actually going to start. It was the kind of day where you find yourself laughing because the alternative is sitting on the floor and staring at the wall.

So, naturally, we decided the best thing to do was to eat dinner outside.

I think we were all craving a little normalcy. Nothing fancy. Just sitting around a table, eating dinner, talking, enjoying the last bits of summer, and pretending for a few minutes that life was normal.

And honestly, it almost worked.

Until my brother-in-law swatted at a yellow jacket.

Now, I don’t know what the yellow jacket’s original plan was that evening, but apparently it had strong feelings about being swatted. Instead of flying away like a reasonable insect, it changed course and headed directly for me.

And stung me.

Right on the arm.

Of course it did.

At that point, we all just lost it.

We laughed. We cried. I think there may have been some yelling on my part. My arm hurt, our hearts hurt, and the entire situation had become so completely ridiculous that there was really nothing left to do but laugh.

Two biopsies.

Two dead batteries.

One angry yellow jacket.

It was almost impressive.

And maybe sometimes laughter is its own kind of grace. Not because anything is actually funny, but because sometimes your heart needs a tiny break from carrying the weight of everything.

Eventually, the waiting ended.

One biopsy came back negative, bringing an enormous wave of relief and gratitude. The other came back with a different outcome.

And just like that, our family found ourselves holding both relief and heartbreak at the very same time.

I think that is one of the strange things about life. We want everything to resolve neatly. We want the good news to follow the bad news, the problem to be fixed, and the story to wrap itself up before we have to go to bed.

But sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes one prayer is answered in the way we desperately hoped, while another prayer leaves us sitting in a place we never wanted to be.

And as a mom, I find that particularly difficult.

Because so much of motherhood is about managing the madness.

We become really good at anticipating problems. We plan ahead. We carry snacks. We have backup plans for our backup plans. We try to soften the hard things before they ever reach the people we love.

We want to be the calm in the storm.

But what happens when the storm is bigger than anything you can organize?

What happens when there is nothing to fix?

What happens when the person you love is waiting for an answer you cannot give them?

What happens when you can’t make the car start, can’t change the biopsy results, and can’t even keep a yellow jacket from attacking you during dinner?

You realize just how little control you actually have.

And, honestly, that is a hard reality for me.

I am a fixer. I like plans. I like knowing what comes next. I like believing that if I work hard enough, think carefully enough, pray enough, organize enough, I can somehow keep the wheels from coming off.

But there are moments when God gently—and sometimes not so gently—reminds me that I was never actually holding all of this together.

He was.

Maybe that is what Scripture means when it says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7)

Not some of it.

All of it.

The biopsy we are afraid of. The diagnosis we don’t understand. The person we love and can’t protect. The car battery. The yellow jacket. The things we can fix and, perhaps more importantly, the things we absolutely cannot.

We are told so often that God won’t give us more than we can handle.

But I’m not sure that’s actually true.

Sometimes life simply gives us more than we can handle.

And perhaps those are the moments when we discover something important:

We were never meant to handle it all alone.

God doesn’t promise that we won’t have storms. He doesn’t promise that every biopsy will come back negative, every car will start, or every yellow jacket will leave us alone.

But He does promise to be with us in the middle of them.

Sometimes He allows us to reach the end of ourselves so we finally realize that we don’t have to carry everything ourselves.

Sometimes He brings us to our knees so we will finally put it all at His feet.

And maybe that is where faith becomes less about having answers and more about surrender.

This weekend didn’t end with everything neatly resolved. There is still uncertainty. There are still conversations to have, questions to answer, and days ahead that we can’t predict.

But there is also this:

God was there for the negative result.
God is there for the other outcome.
God was there when the batteries died.
God was there when the yellow jacket stung my arm.
God was there around that dinner table when we were laughing and crying because, honestly, what else could we do?

Maybe that’s the reminder I needed.

I don’t have to be the calm because I have everything under control.

I can be calm because I know who is in control.

And maybe that is the difference.

As moms, we will always want to catch the curveballs. We will always want to protect the people we love and make the hard things easier. We will always want to keep the wheels on.

But sometimes life throws too many things at us at once.

Sometimes the batteries die. The biopsy comes back differently than we hoped. The yellow jacket stings you right in the middle of dinner.

And sometimes all you can do is laugh, cry, fall to your knees, and say, “God, I can’t handle this.”

Maybe that isn’t failure.

Maybe that’s faith.

Because when we finally admit that we can’t hold it all together, we make room for the One who never asked us to.

And on the days when life feels like too much—when the bees sting, the batteries die, and the news isn’t what we hoped—I can open my hands, give it back to Him, and remember:

I may not be able to control the storm.

But I never have to face it alone.