Sara is looking good!

She is continuing to improve. She will be tapped today for the third time (I know it seems like the plans change every day - they do), and if all clear then a fourth and then surgery. Her pediatrician is very happy with how she looks and he is doing great. You know there are some blessings we can find in going through this right now. Sara has her days and nights mixed up, up all night, asleep all day. We told them to get that worked out before they send her home, and she probably will. We also were dealing with colic a lot at night, and that seems to have subsided. So you can find those slivers of sunshine on a cloudy day.

Heard an encouraging word this past weekend, maybe it will encourage you also. James 1:2-4 "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." I was listening to a pastor whose podcast I subscribe to preach on this passage. And he was encouraging his church to remember God's purpose in our trials.

You see, Jennifer and I have caught ourselves through this recent ordeal just longing and wishing for Sara to get better and get home. And I think in a way putting our hope in the normalcy that would return when she came home. But God's purpose in our trials is not for our lives to return to "normal". Nor for our situation to be solved and made better according to ours or anyone else's definition of "better". His purpose is for us to be made "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing" Or as Paul would put it in Romans 8:28-29 - to be made like Jesus. His purpose is to make us like Jesus. Now that changes everything in a trial.

We aren't looking for the situation to get better or get solved for our joy to be real. We aren't looking to get through the trial to bring us joy. Our joy in the trial is the work God is doing in us in making us more like Him. Something Jennifer and I knew, but maybe we had lost sight of. Knowing a truth and having to live it are two different things. Maybe that will encourage you, pray that we won't forget it and find our joy in Him to be exceedingly abundant.