We’re down to the 7th child to come down with this stomach bug. I had it myself with the first 3 sick kids. Let me be clear: I’m not fond of sickness to begin with and stomach bugs are the kind of things I wouldn’t wish upon my enemies! Tonight promises to be my fourth sleepless night this week. I have had a couple of good night sleeps sprinkled in there somewhere, but this one will be the second in a row.
This is hard, for sure. But in God’s kingdom, I have learned, there is treasure to be found in everything. Yes, even in revolving buckets of yuck. Elisabeth Elliot would say that every circumstance we face can be a gateway to joy, and I think I am beginning to understand what she meant.
Joy is not a lack of difficulty. Joy is not a permanent feeling of happiness. Joy, the joy God provides, is the buoyancy that keeps bringing me back up to the surface when the storms of life push me under. Peace is not the lack of hardship. The peace of God is that untouchable place of rest that I can find in the middle of any storm of life. Psalms 16:5-6 says:
5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
This moment of sickness, of sleeplessness, of giving sacrificially to these precious children He has entrusted me… this moment is a gift. I decide what I do with it. I had my own plans, my agenda for this week, and I can promise you that my week was going to look nothing like this. But God had a different plan. These are those lines that verse talks about, His agenda. These are my limitations this week, and if He is my portion and my cup, these lines are nothing but pleasant. THIS is what I was meant to be doing this week. The sleeplessness, the tiredness, the holding of warm foreheads, the rubbing of heaving backs, the whispering of prayers for healing, the wakeful moments of solitude and prayer… this is where I was meant to be this week, and if I’m being completely honest, there is nowhere else I would have rather been.