Dear Jesus...

Dear Jesus,

Lord, could you bless that girl above?  Could you heal her?  I know, I know, I have asked many times.  Seems we've been in this place in the past.  I know that, if I waited until I was perfect or she was perfect before asking, I would never ask.  But You are perfect. You alone, and Your thoughts are higher and Your plans are good.  So, when the hard happens... again...  when life doesn't make sense...  again...  when a young woman is sick and has been sick for so long and it's a battle every day to keep going, we need You.  We need Your good.  We need Your peace.  We need Your hope.

I have pleaded for answers for a long time.  Answers were supposed to come after one of the myriad of tests ran in the last year.  Answers were supposed to come with relief and praise report, not another battle and more questions.

I would so take her place.  I always would have.  I keep telling myself that I won't drive myself crazy asking why.  But there are weak moments when I do.  Why do I have children that face life-threatening issues?  Why my family?  Why my daughter, so ill, with tubes and monitors and pain and fear?  So, the "whys" circle in my brain and I push them down. I cast them aside, and they come back.  I turn on praise and worship music that calls you the anchor in the "eye of the storm", the "King of the World", "my God through all of it."  

What I feel the most, as uncertainty and frustration flow through me, is how broken I am, how weak, how utterly helpless to help my child, and how desperate.  Can the weak be used?

"Now I'm just a beggar in the presence of a King.  

I wish I could bring so much more.
But if it's true You use broken things
Then here I am Lord, I'm all Yours."

But I am so flawed. I think thoughts that aren't fair to others.  Such as...  Do other parents know how blessed they are?  Do they see their children, their healthy children, and know how precarious that health can be?  One diagnosis, one doctor that wasn't properly trained, one "rare complication;" and it can all change.  Lord, forgive me for seeing other parents with healthy children, hearing them complain over the trivial, and being frustrated with them... and perhaps envying them a little.

I so love my children.  I don't know why You chose my girls to face what they face. I can't see the final tapestry, only the tangles and knots on the back. I can't make sense out of what seems senseless, especially since it probably won't be made clear while we are here on this earth.  I'm just a mom, begging once again for her child to be made whole.  

Each time I beg, I step with You.  More than once I have begged for them to live, sitting on the side of a hospital bed, a bleak diagnosis from a doctor ringing in my ears.  Every time you have given me my child.  And despite feeling frustrated with parents who don't realize they are so blessed, I also wouldn't wish any parent to feel that heart-aching, paralyzing fear for their child.

Yes, there are a lot of "I"s in this.  My apologies, Jesus, for I know the focus should be on You. 

See...  I understand the temptation to walk away, to be so crushed with heartache or fear that you feel abandoned.  I understand the anger coursing through the veins at the injustice of it all.  I understand those that question, but haven't had all props removed with only You left to lean on and cling to.  So even as I cry out, begging, weak and small, I have found You in this place before, and believe You will meet me here again. 

I pray for my child, not me. I pray for answers.  I pray for strength.  I pray for healing.  Most of all, I pray because...  is there any hope without You?