Endurance

Just wanted to update everyone on the situation with Nolan - thank you so much for your encouraging emails and notes...and words of wisdom! He is now sleeping through the night again and is falling asleep much better without the hour of screaming first. However, on Monday I noticed these raised red bumps all over his diaper area and around his mouth. He was also running a low-grade fever, so I figured it was diaper rash and due to teething and I didn't think much of it. Then, the bumps appeared on his hands, feet and inside his mouth. I called the doctor and, as it turns out, he has hand-foot-and-mouth disease. If it isn't one thing, it's another!! Unfortunately, it is a virus and there is nothing we can give him. The poor guy is so uncomfortable and now all his bumps are blistering and they look awful! It should only last another week, though, and he'll be back on the mend. But, until then, we have one fussy kid on our hands!

After all of this, I have to admit I was left thinking, "What else, Lord?!" Then I read something that shifted me back into the right perspective:

"When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become women of mature character, women of integrity with no weak spots. If, in the process, any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem she has only to ask God, who gives generously to all without making them feel guilty, and she may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given her." (James 1:2-5, Phillips translation)

So, I am now praying for endurance...not that the hard times will cease, but that I will press on, realizing with every step that He is growing me through these trials and pulling me ever closer to His side. I love the reassuring words in Psalm 121:1-5a:

"I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip, he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you."