Faith: In sickness and in health

Not again! I hear my daughter cough and sneeze out thick snot. Sunday marked 2 weeks of being home from the hospital, and it appeared that she was getting sick again.

I have to admit, I could feel the anxiety raising up inside of me. I start my checks on her. The stethoscope comes out. Courseness in lungs. (Grimace) The oxygen saturation monitor shows typical levels with no change. She doesn't feel warm. It just seems like she has cold symptoms.

Before you shake your head at me for being a paranoid person, just know that my daughter was hospitalized in June, July, and August for her asthma or pneumonia. In Sept/Oct, she spent 4 weeks in the hospital and was on a ventilator. So, yes, I am on high alert with any change in her health right now.

My husband tries to calm me down, and we decide to head out to church anyway. Due to Jaycee's illnesses, we hadn't been to church in several weeks. I was missing the atmosphere of attending our church.

So off we went. The music was great. The sermon was...well jam packed with things I needed to hear: When you pray and believe God for something based upon the Bible, that seed is very small. You have to guard that seed. There are many outside influences that try to steal it away but you can't let external things affect your internal faith. Your faith, and perseverance to maintain it, has to come internally.

In other words, whenever I got up that morning and saw Jaycee's snot, I should have said/prayed, "Jaycee you are healthy and well. Your lungs are strong." I could have did some checks on her but not allowed anxiety to run the show. I could have told God thank you when a level looked normal. I could have prayed when I heard stuff in her lungs. But, I didn't. I think I did exclaim, "Oh Jesus!" but that's as far as it went.

It's so easy to get wore out when you are in battle after battle. It's easy to speak and think negatively when you are in bad situations.

But faith is the evidence of things unseen. Faith and the word are true no matter what our eyes and other senses tell us. Having faith that Jaycee is healthy and well when she's having no symptoms is easy. But when the first symptom shows its ugly self, the test of my faith is in my reaction. Do I really believe that she can keep from going to the hospital? Do I believe God can sustain her through another illness or that God can take away this illness? Do I see her as fragile or do I see her as an overcomer through Jesus? Can I remain calm when I see a symptom and not get too emotional and out of control?

Sunday morning, I didn't pass the test. But, I hope to have more successes and less failures in the future.