Upon Further Review

The last year has been difficult to say the least. I always rag on whiney blogpost, however, this is going to sound like one!
In July, my oldest daughter, was in bed for the month. Her Dr. ran a lot of test, blood work, every type of scan...etc. On August 1-8, she, my mother and I traveled to Europe to see my brother and his family. When we returned she rested and I assumed that she was feeling better, just tired from the trip. Two days after the trip we received a phone call asking us to provide foster care for a little boy that "would probably me be moving in with family but they just needed time to get it all worked out." We said, "Yes!" feeling that this would be a good time to get our feet wet again in foster care. The next week my oldest daughter started 6th grade. She still wasn't feeling great. I was convinced that she had a strain of mono and pulled her out of her dance classes and extra after school stuff. Two weeks later I was pulling her out of school completely treating pneumonia and whatever else this was. Less than a week later our pediatrician referred us to Children's Hospital in Dallas. We had an appointment in Infectious Diseases. I didn't feel that worried. I did, however,feel very self-concious. I could tell when discussing this with people that they were skeptical about how sick she really was. I do not believe that anyone thought I was crazy- just an over-concerned parent. The Dr.'s came in and asked us probably 100 questions. They ran a lot more blood test and then sent us home. Less that a week later, the Dr. called to let me know that Abby had an infection called histoplasmosis. She had been treated for pneumonia twice and he felt confident that she was on the road to recovery...but did say that she would not fully recover until Summer.
At the same time that we are nursing her back to health- we are nursing a newborn. Well, not really nursing. But you get the point. We now had a little guy that was 4 months old, he was pre-mature by 2 months, so our sleep was lacking severely. We were growing to love him so the sleepless nights, albeit not fun, were worth it!
This is beginning to sound whiney....and it's about to get a little worse. My husband works 2 jobs, we now have 5 kids, 1 of which is in bed recovering, 1 of which is sleeping all day and wakey-wakey all night, and 3 who need to be educated. Ellie really is somewhat self sufficient when it comes to her math, reading & history. So it was not hard...it just WAS. Lu & Zoe needed to learn to read because that's a pretty big precursor to being successful in life and graduating one day. Needless to say, the stress was up and the sleep was down.
Three weeks ago, Ellie turned 10! She hit double digits. And you have to know her. She is so fun and grateful for ANYTHING & EVERYTHING. Well, Grams hooked her up with a night at Great Wolf Lodge. We eat gluten free over here at the Fields' house simply put: because I need one more thing to manage. So the ONE thing Ellie wanted was to eat gluten on her bday weekend. What the heck! You only live once. We had a blast at GWL, came home Saturday evening, got up to go to Worship Sunday morning and Ellie is s.i.c.k.! She stayed in bed nauseated Sunday, Monday & Tuesday. On Wednesday, which happened to be her birthday, I got up to cook her the breakfast that she wanted. She comes walking into the kitchen and let's just say, "It was ugly!" She was doubled over in pain and wretching. I have never seen her so sick. We went to the pediatrician at 1:30, then to the ER & then we were transported to Children's at 11 p.m. that evening. They diagnosed her with pancreatitis and kept her there until Sunday. Greg took off work Wednesday afternoon and returned on Tuesday morning.
The next week everything seemed to start to ease up. We went to Worship the following Sunday all together. It was really interesting because for some reason that day everyone seemed to be asking me questions about our foster son's status. It had been a week when people were not showing up for the visits and I felt bad for him, as well as the entire situation. I sat down in the pew, with all of the questions still on my mind, the last week still fresh and the last several months still fresh. The under toe was trying to draw me under when our pianist began to play, "This is my Father's World." A flood of emotion swept over me at once, a Stillness that can only be explained One way, and a Peace that I could not explain if I tried.
This is my Father's world.
O let me ne'er forget
that though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let the earth be glad!
So I worshipped...
and right before the sermon began...
Ellie gave me a look that said, "I'm not okay."
So...back we went to Children's. Praise the Lord that another pastor's wife in town, who is also a nurse in Big D, happened to have her phone with her and she met me at home and got us to and into the hospital a little more quickly. With med's and assurance we left the hospital that evening, came home and we are good to go. i hope....and back to gluten-free!
And you know....that's Life. All of the good mixed with all of the bad. And the Truth that God rules it ALL. So tonight I will rest like a baby...or better than any babies in this house, knowing that God Is. I will rest knowing that He is Enough. And, I will rest knowing that this is His world!