Working For My Good….

A couple of months ago I was sitting in a meeting at work when I got an emergency call from my son Carters teacher. He had developed a boil on his neck that was sitting right on his spine. What had initially looked like an insect bite the day before quickly grew and hardened into a boil in a matter of hours. We were sent to the ER within minutes of arriving at his doctor. Upon arriving at the hospital they took one look at him and decided that he would need a procedure to remove it. It was literally formed right on his spine in an area that was too sensitive to remove with him awake. I was low key mortified. Ok, high key mortified… but I didn’t want Carter to freak out so I held it in. When the nurse came back in the room she told me that they were going to do the IV so that he wouldn’t experience any pain during the procedure. I know Carter, I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy task but I grossly underestimated how hard he would fight. She tried just holding his arm down, I tried holding him on my lap, two nurses tried holding the arm down, we tried to bribe him with treats, he wiggled and screamed out of every attempt. That’s when she decided that I would need to lay on him. They wrapped him in a sheet, I laid on his side and held him while they inserted the IV. His scream was the most piercing I had ever heard from him. He was terrified and rightfully so. All he knew was that someone was sticking a huge needle in his hand and he didn’t want it there. All he knew was that his mother was helping them do it and he couldn’t figure out why. He kept saying “mommy help please” and it broke my heart.

I was talking to a really close friend and she was commenting about how sometimes it’s so hard to find meaning while you’re going thru a tough time. I agreed. Sometimes things don’t make sense, sometimes things don’t feel fair, and if you’re not careful you can become disillusioned by it all. One of my favorite scriptures remind us that nothing is allowed to take place in our lives that is not for our ultimate and utter good. Even our mistakes. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.

So as I was praying thru some things tonight I was so vividly reminded of that moment with Carter in the hospital. And I wondered if that’s how God feels sometimes when he has to take us thru a tough season, teach us a tough lesson. His conviction starts off as a whisper just like the nurse gently tried to hold Carters hand at first. He resisted so much that eventually we had to strap him down and forcefully insert it. I’ve been thru some force fed moments in my faith as well. Moments that I know started off as gentle reminders. As Carters mom I understood that even though he didn’t want that IV, that it would hurt him when they inserted it, I knew he needed it to get better. So even though it hurt my soul to hear him desperately asking me to rescue him, I allowed it to take place.

So many times in the Bible we hear about moments where God weeps with and for us. Psalms 56:8 says that he keeps track of all of our sorrows and collects our tears. He’s a good and loving father who will go thru extreme measures to get you where you need to be, even if it hurts temporarily. So with that belief my goal has been to focus more on finding God during tough times than I focus on asking him to remove them. And as I end this year my prayers have been that God opens my eyes so that I can see and find purpose and meaning in every discomfort. And that I find rest in knowing that ultimately he knows the plans he has for us and that they’re ALL to give us a future and a hope. I hope that if you are navigating a tough time, wondering why God is allowing a discomfort, or feeling pain in any area of your life, that you somehow find comfort in knowing that your Father in heaven knows what you need and that he never allows trouble to last always. Don’t get so distracted with temporary pain that you miss the purpose. Let’s end 2019 with our heads up and hearts directed at our ultimate source. Never forget that he knows and he cares ❤️