The Father Who Never Left the Waiting Room

When seven-year-old Maria Gonzalez was diagnosed with leukemia at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in 2019, her father Carlos did something his coworkers couldn't understand. He stopped sleeping at home. For eleven months of chemotherapy, Carlos spent every night in a vinyl recliner beside her bed. His back ached. His neck stiffened. He lost twenty pounds from cafeteria meals he barely touched.

Nurses would find him at 3 a.m., not scrolling his phone, but watching Maria breathe. When she vomited, he held the basin. When she cried from mouth sores so painful she couldn't swallow, tears ran silently down his own face. A nurse once told him, "Mr. Gonzalez, you don't have to stay every single night." He looked at her as if she'd spoken nonsense. "She's my daughter," he said. "Where else would I be?"

Carlos couldn't take the cancer away. He couldn't stop the nausea or shield her from the needles. But he could be present, and his presence was everything.

Isaiah tells us that in all Israel's affliction, the Lord Himself was afflicted. Not distant. Not indifferent. Afflicted. The Almighty does not watch our suffering from a comfortable distance. He draws near. He stays through the longest nights. He carries us — not because we asked eloquently, but because we are His, and where else would He be?