Leslee and I were talking last night about how one of our biggest frustrations with health care is how treatment for one thing, often, means making other things hurt. This has, certainly, been the case this trip.

If you got a chance to watch the last video we posted, then you were able to appreciate Ela’s good spirits and general positivity. Sure, she’s been trending in the wrong direction as far as her BNP but she’s been happy and comfortable….she’s been normal! Not now though. The first line of treatment (even before whatever we find from the heart cath) includes IV steroids and these steroids have, somehow, torn up her stomach. She’s had diarrhea for about 24 hours…and not the normal kind either. Things have been like back in February when we suspected she had an abscess…that was the most pain I’ve ever seen her in and we’re going through that again.

I mean…what do you do? What can you do when a 5 year old is screaming in pain and asking for help…for you to take her home? Do you pray?…Yes…do you beg the nurse for stronger drugs to manage the pain? Yes…do you try to distract and comfort? Yes…does it make the stress or the grief or the difficulty at the moment any easier? No…sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes nothing helps. It’s frustrating and tiring and overwhelming. Every episode of cries and tears feels like an emotional workout.

Here’s a not-very-insightful truth: God intends hard times to be hard. Hard times are not supposed to feel good. They are not intended to feel “under control.” They are not intended to bring out our best qualities or strengths or virtues. It is actually the opposite of all of this. Hard times are intended to feel bad, to feel like they are completely out of our control, and they are meant to bring the worst out of us!

How else will we see our need to be sanctified? How else will we see our need for God’s grace?

7  Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

8  It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.  (Proverbs 3:7–8, ESV)

The temptation in times like this is to give too much weight to the way we feel, to be “wise in our own eyes.” However, we need to fall back on the truths of Scripture and on what we know about God and His character. In doing so, we fear Him: God is good and does good (Ps. 119:68), God knows all things (including how we feel through hard times!)(Ps. 139:1-4), God is working things out for good (Rom. 8:28), God is faithful and He does not let us be tempted beyond what we are able (1 Cor. 10:13). These truths might not make things any easier in the heat of the moment yet falling back on them distinguish the way we grieve from the way unbelievers grieve (1 Thess. 4:13).

Ela’s on her way back from her cath. What we know so far is that her heart pressures are a little bit higher than last time she had them checked. Tomorrow we find the biopsy results and what kind of rejection we’re dealing with.

Before the Cath Video