It Never Gets Easy

As I sat on the ground this morning cradling sweet Ladybug after a fall seizure, during which she hit her chin on the table on the way down, tears flowed from both my eyes and hers. She didn't say anything - she just looked into my eyes with little girl tears running down her face onto the ground and a giant bruise already forming on the bottom of her chin and knees. I tried to find the right words to remind her that she wasn't being carelessly clumsy, but that the great seizure that had taken her down this time couldn't be predicted or prevented. It wasn't her fault, and that even though we had just prayed thirty minutes earlier that God would keep her seizures away and heal her brain this morning, that He had chosen to answer differently than we would have liked. But that we trust Him all the same.

The Bible reiterates over and over how hard times strengthen our faith and to count it all joy as we face trials of various kinds.  It is easy to read and say, but so challenging to live and believe as your hold your baby on the floor after what was possibly her 300,000th seizure. (Not an exaggeration...I just did a quick calculation. If anything, I have guessed on the low end.)  When I'm rocking and squeezing my son as his body trembles from yet another nightmare for an hour straight. When we sit in the hospital and listen to doctors give us bad news yet again about one of our precious children. When people who know a little about my life say, "I could never do it."
Little do they know I can't either.

I believe firmly that we should research what we think to be true and examine all different points of views. We should always be ready to give a defense for what we believe. But there are times when faith has to surpass understanding. I seriously don't know how anyone makes it through life without the firm foundation of Jesus Christ. I would be without hope. He is my rock and my strength when I have nothing left. There are times that despite my constant study and prayer, I don't understand. There are times I have to let faith fill in the gaps between my human comprehension of a situation and God. There are times I have no choice but to trust Him and His ways, even when those ways aren't mine.

But thank goodness they aren't mine. If there's anything that I've learned, it is that we are very similar to my own children. We ask for things that we think are best, and our loving Father says yes or no based on the bigger picture of what is good and healthy. Panda would forego his nightly injection if given the choice, but what kind of parent would I be to deny him the health and greater gain for a short-term reprieve? And so I will trust my Father despite my lack of understanding.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9

So I will keep on praying, asking for prayer, and trusting. Watching my children suffer is the hardest, most helpless challenge I've ever had to do endure. I have seen trials, but mornings sitting on the floor holding my baby after yet another seizure truly tests my faith and my endurance more than anything else ever has. But I know that God promises that in my weakness, He is strong.

I say all of this partly because I needed to hear it yet again, and partly to share the encouragement. We all face trials and our faith and endurance are stretched beyond what we feel possible. We get just plain tired.

In the end, is it all worth it?
Yes.
A thousand times yes.

Despite the hard days and the mentally exhausting hours, I would do it all again in a heartbeat. I'm so thankful God doesn't do things my way.