A crybaby, a blind man, and a sick little boy.

This weekend has had its good moments, but at some points, it's just plain stunk.

I have been dwelling in Negative Nancy Land for most of Sunday afternoon.  A major crybaby.  It all started with a sick boy.  Not Ryan, but Colton.  He threw up when I was leaving my nephew's baseball game yesterday in Lowell, and has thrown up several other times along with some pretty nasty diarrhea.  So today, I was starting to get concerned because he wasn't keeping anything down.  Off to the ER we went to ensure that he was okay, and that he was hydrated enough.  Not surprisingly, he wasn't, so my 13-month-old little had to be hooked up to his first IV and receive fluids.

So I started to think as I was sitting in Room 5 of the emergency room at Lakeshore Hospital... God, why me?  WHY on earth does it seem like it's one thing after another?  I see plenty of other people around us who are sailing through life with seemingly no problems right now.  I have a husband with inoperable cancer, I have no job next year, and now my little boy is sick.  Why do you choose to continue to challenge us like this?  I'm getting sick of it!  I don't want to watch my husband get hooked up to an IV machine and see another one of those "BIOHAZARD" bags brought to him.  I don't want to see my toddler throw up everywhere.  I don't want to have him at the hospital.  I don't want this.  I DON'T WANT THIS!

John 9:1-3: ¹ As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. ² His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
   ³ “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Right now, I feel like Ryan and I are experiencing a little bit of what the blind man experienced.  I don't like that we are that family, the one who God is using to display whatever works He chooses to display through this (still hoping that he's choosing to show his awesome, miraculous healing power).  But how cool is it that He is using us in the midst of this situation.  I'm floored when someone says, "Your blog post impacted me."  Or, "I've shared the link with someone else that has cancer and it has encouraged them."  I feel blessed by the way that the Lord has used our cancer journey for so much good.  If it weren't for that, this cancer would be totally unbearable.

I wish like anything that this cancer hadn't happened to my husband, but if there was ever a person to whom God could give a trial and get praise back tenfold, it would be Ryan.  The works of God are on full display in his life.  And it becomes more and more evident each day that God allowed this to happen to have us rely on Him more fully, and to glorify Him.  Praise the Lord for those opportunities!