Lessons in Faith & Prayer

This is not my typical blog post. I am a pretty private person, therefore I like to keep the posts focused on the medical side of Avery's journey. But this post has been bouncing around in my head since the beginning of the year, and I decided to share in hopes that it may help someone struggling through something.

On the day Avery's brain tumor was discovered, I felt exactly two emotions - Anger and Terror. I was angry that this happened to our child. I was angry that she was going to have to suffer. I was angry at all the things she would have to miss out on. I was angry that our family would struggle. I was angry that Shon and I had to envision a future in which our daughter might not be physically with us. And all of these things that made us angry also terrified us.

The first thing we did was pray. We prayed for a miracle and for the tumor to disappear... it didn't. We prayed that the tumor was benign... it wasn't. We prayed that the cancer hadn't metastasized to her spine... it had. At the time it seemed that every prayer we prayed went unanswered which left us feeling defeated and alone. Then one day it just hit me, and I decided to change the things I was asking for. When I stopped asking God to remove us from the path and started asking Him to lead us down the path, we began to see our prayers answered. We started asking God for only what Avery needed in that moment... no more vomiting until daylight, no more diarrhea, a few uninterrupted hours of sleep, etc. Almost every time we made one of those requests, the prayer was answered immediately.

Then it came time for Avery's first set of MRIs since starting treatment. We obviously prayed for clear scans, but we had prayed for clear scans before. Mentally we tried to prepare ourselves for bad news. It's not that we didn't believe that God would heal her, but we couldn't afford to be devastated yet again. But Praise God, she has had 3 sets of clear scans!

Faith is a tricky thing sometimes, and it becomes even trickier when you are facing situations of life and death. Along the way, I have questioned God's plan. I knew that God had a plan for Avery. Selfishly I hoped that mine and His plans were aligned. Right now they seem to be in synch, but we also know that things can change in an instant. But God knows me, and I don't think he would expect anything differently. Most importantly, He knows my heart. I have learned to talk with Him and trust Him far more than ever before.

We still have a long road ahead of us which I am sure will include many bumps along the way. One day I hope that it will be evidently clear what the purpose was for this trial. As a parent who had to watch her child fight and suffer, it is hard to imagine that anything could justify what she has been through. In the meantime, we will keep moving forward one day at a time wondering and waiting for that "aha moment" while God just laughs and says "Just you wait and see".