Pain and gratitude

Tonight as Todd and Gracie were out shopping and Tyson was asleep as I worked in the kitchen cooking/cleaning my mind and mostly my heart went out into the realm of close friends/family I have that are currently suffering and enduring much pain and hardship.  I of course thought of a sweet boy who has the same type of leukemia Gracie does and today had the longest/most chemo intensive day we had a clinic in all of her treatment.  He had to fast from 9-3 spending almost all of that time at the hospital.  He’s 3.  He’s amazing, he’s a fighter, a hero.  He’s battling the beast and I pray every day he will win and Gracie too.  I pray for other little cancer cuties fighting the same thing to.  He heart hurts and aches for the kids and their siblings and of course their parents as I know exactly how they feel, or mostly.  I’m sure we  all process it a little different.  I thought of sweet Jace who has passed on.  He would be 3 tomorrow.  He’s amazing and he’s another hero of mine, so is his Mom.  They teach people every day what matters and what doesn’t and how to be strong and have faith and rely on the Lord.  I thought of my best friend growing up, my cousin who has been through many difficult things but recently lost his son he had waited years for after being chosen to adopt and the baby didn’t make it.  We got married within a few months of each other our trials have been very different but maybe similar in some ways.  I was blessed with two children quickly and have watched my baby suffer and feared I might lose her, he has longed for a baby in his arms and my fear is his reality.  I hope they will be blessed with a baby soon.  Please check out their adoption blog here and pass it on to anyone you know considering adoption.  They will make amazing parents and I look forward to the day when I see him tenderly loving his child along with his sweet wife (who will never be seen without a smile on her face, seriously what better trait than that for a mother).  

The list goes on of course, it seems each person has their own trials and many so painful and heart breaking.  But of course soul building, bringing us down to our knees so the Lord can raise us up into when He knows we can become.  As much as it hurts to think of the pain each of these friends and others suffer, I felt a sense of gratitude.  I have been blessed to have such strength to surround me.  To have friends with great courage and strength; faith and hope.  Who suffer and don’t deny God, but turn to him for succor.  They drop to their knees and in moments of desperation and great pain, plead for God’s help, and he gives them strength to take one more step, and sometimes take one more breath. 

And gratitude most of all that we have a Heavenly Father who loves me and all of us.  He listens to every word we pray and answers those prayers in the timing that is best for us, and in a way that will help us most in become what He knows we can become.