Calm amidst the storm

While I write these posts, about having grace and loving it, and forgiving and destiny, my own life is wrapped in turmoil. I am between jobs, yet I still have an employer. I have 2 wonderful, healthy children yet my boy cannot stand to sleep in his bed, and of course if he can't stand it, his sister suffers when he announces his displeasure at the top of his lungs. We are strained, and cave in every night. And then there are the in-laws, who after 49 years of marriage have decided to behave like High School students, and put a revolving door on their home which the father-in-law uses like he is stuck. Perhaps a better analogy would be a hamster on a running wheel. They just keep going around in circles, reaching the same discord that started their marital problems in the first place.

I tell myself that all of this mess is the price I pay for having healthy kids. We struggled for years to get them, and after losing my son to OI many years ago, I know how important having healthy kids is. There really is no substitute. I have a friend whose 18 year old twins suffer from CF, and she has spent the past month and a half of her life getting no sleep and administering IVs, this after a bout with the other twin just a month or two prior. It really is a constant pain that you don't even recognize until it is gone, and replaced with the greater pain of endings.

So it is my turn to swallow my own bitter pill, and thank Him for all the pain in my life, because when it comes right down to it, it ain't that bad. Every healthy cry from my son is confirmation that God listens.