If you were given only a two percent chance of survival, would you turn your eyes to the temporal or the eternal? We’re all terminal, of course, but some know approximately how long they have left on this side of eternity while the rest of us do not.
I have a true story that might help someone – two stories, in fact – of two girls who are the two percent. One is very close to me – the other I’ve just met through the ‘net.
One story is public – the other will remain private for a time.
But both are miracles in the making.
Back in February, I told you of a devastating phone call that came from one of our children. The details are not mine to share - more questions remain than answers. I can only tell you there was a 98% chance of the worst possible outcome.
Four months have passed, and while the diagnosis has not changed, the prognosis has. Hope has taken root and flourished, tenaciously clinging to the evidence of things not seen.
The two percent.
Will you wonder, then, why I wept when I heard what the young Christian woman known as Nightbirde said to the judges on that TV talent show two weeks ago? Barely 30, and with a husband who didn’t want to be married any longer, she spoke simply and without self-pity of the tumors attacking her lungs, spine, and liver. “I’m so much more than the bad things that happen to me.”
And then she looked straight at the camera and spoke into my heart.
“I have a two percent chance of survival, but two percent is not zero percent. Two percent is something. And I wish people knew how amazing it is.”
Millions heard her say it on live television, and tens of millions have watched the video clip where she sang her confidence that whatever happened, she would be okay. (You can watch here as she’s awarded the Golden Ticket!)
She spoke for everyone who’s been told there is little hope for them.
Those who’ve been diagnosed with terminal illnesses.
Those who’ve been told there’s little chance they’ll get the job, the home, the spouse, the baby.
Those who have little left but God, and yet know that God is enough.
Those who are the two percent.
Hope is a bird that sings while it is yet dark.
Copyright 2021, Maggie Wallem Rowe
