A Beautiful Picture of God's Love

This is just a quick post on something that was shown to me by God this morning and I could NOT WAIT to share it.  I hope it means as much to someone else as it does me.  I have mentioned here before that my daughter (age 21 months) has Cystic Fibrosis.  I try not to make this blog about that, but it is a huge part of our lives, and a lot of the lessons I have learned stem from that circumstance.  As part of her treatment, she has to wear a chest percussion vest for thirty minutes every morning and every night.  This is basically a vest that looks a lot like a life jacket.  It has hoses hooked to it, and the other end of the hoses hook to  a machine that,  when turned on, blows the vest up like a blood pressure cuff and shakes the mess out of her!  The purpose is to break up any "yuck" that might be in her lungs so she can cough it out. 

Now, this is fairly new to us.  She was just recently big enough to receive this kind of treatment.  At first, it was kind of fun for her.  But, can you imagine keeping an almost two year old occupied, while sitting still and beeing shaken like a polaroid picture for half and hour!  No easy feat, I tell  you.  We do books, songs, movies, show, WHATEVER we can to make this a bearable, if not fun, time.  She usually does okay for the first 10 minutes at the low speed, then with the next 10 she starts getting a little ancy, as it speeds up some, by the time the last 10 minutes comes around and we are at full speed, she is a very unhappy a camper a lot of times.  We typically spend a good portion of that time in tears, sometimes with her all out screaming. 

It is often a fight to even get her to put it on.  She knows what is coming.  What is the point of this?  As I was fighting with her to put it on this morning, firm in my resolve knowing that though it broke my heart to see her go through it, it was necessary for her to live a healthy life.  She doesn't understand that yet, she just knows she HATES it.  Aren't we like that with God often times? We fight Him tooth and nail, get angry, and all out scream sometimes that we don't want to do or go through something.  But He knows it is necessary for our spiritual and sometimes physical, mental, and emotional health.  Then, in the middle of it, we still kick and scream.  We want out of whatever circumstance, or "vest" we may be in.  But you know what, He is holding us all along.  Just as I am always there, holding my little one.  Hugging, kissing, and comforting.  I CAN'T let her out, she has to finish, but I hold her tight and get shook and cry right along with her.  She is my child, just as we are God's children.  How much more does our Heavenly Father love us?!  And you know what, most of the time now, when she starts to get upset, she reaches up, grabs my neck, buries her face in it, and want sme to hold her tight and sing in her ear.  I hold her as tightly as I can and sing and kiss and rock, and she makes it through.  She does not always make it through happily, but she makes it.  She knows drawing me closer to her is what is will take for her to be okay with this.  When we are in the midst of strife, if we will just grab God around the neck, draw him close, and though he can't let us "out" (because he knows it is  in our best interest to finish), let Him comfort us and know He is right there with us, weeping for us and comforting us, allowing Himself to "shake" right along with us, we WILL make it through! :)

If you are interested,  you can read more about my baby girl and how God has lead us through this here, here, and here.

God bless,