CCAM Up Close and Personal...Again

During Joy's pregnancy, (Or was it my pregnancy with her??) I posted this picture to help y'all understand what I was talking about when I said something about the cysts/tumor in her left lung. I thought I'd show you again what her lung used to look like. I know it looks like mashed potatoes but in this picture, she was obviously still in the belly, (duh) facing down and her head is on the right side. You can see her spine across the top of the picture and then the outlined almost square thing is the tumor. The black dots within the square thing are separate cysts.

Does that help? Nod if you're with me.

I'll pretend you're nodding.

I'm showing this because today (appt. is at 2:30) I will meet with the surgeon to look at the CT scan results and see what her lung and the unwanted guests in it look like. I think based on what the nurse told me we're talking about a small guest/party of guests. At least one guest but she wouldn't tell me specifics. Do you wish I'd stop referring to the tumor as a guest?

Sitting in my BSF small group Wednesday morning--which is going really well by the way--I've learned a ton already and while waking up early enough to milk the cows (that we don't have,) and driving and feeding/changing everyone is a major pain I'm learning too much to stop. Anyway, while sitting in my group we talked about instances where we have tested God and asked Him to prove Himself. I told my group more about Joy and how the last year has given me opportunities to ask for people to pray for her and see God answer those prayers. The events surrounding Joy's birth have also given us chances to test Him and His healing ability.

I shared that because Joy is here and doing well, I have never questioned why He didn't take the tumor away completely. I'm not sure if I can give a good answer for why, (I've certainly questioned Him plenty of times about other things,) but from day one I knew that He wanted her here. It was a joke early on, "I guess God wanted us to have another baby because things don't add up..." and when we learned about her condition it was ever present in our minds. He wanted her here. We didn't know why exactly, though we loved her and still do, but having another baby when we did wasn't our idea. He wanted and wants her here so whatever that looks like is fine with us.

Not that I didn't complain or wonder why He allowed something like what she has into her little body. Not that I didn't wonder why He revealed it the same day Sean was getting Charlie admitted to the hospital with a mysterious blood infection and I couldn't be with them. My mom was with him which helped. Of course we wondered about those things. Why Sean wasn't in the room when I found out, (Emmy was with me so I wasn't by myself,) or why we came so close so many times to having the intrauterine surgery done many months ago only to find out the situation was just okay enough to wait. From week to week we thanked God for answering so many prayers that we could avoid the surgery.

He is no less faithful because there's something still in her lung than He would be had it been gone on the CT scan. He is more aware of our limitations and our true needs than we are and has provided what we needed at every step of this process. He has never turned away or pushed us out into the unknown by ourselves. He has a plan for this whole thing and we're doing what we know how to do to keep trusting Him. And I'm okay with all of that.

Maybe I feel this way because I know I have no choice. Maybe I realize it's in God's hands. Maybe a mixture. I just know in the midst of going in and talking with this man who could very well be putting weird instruments into my baby's body sometime soon I am not afraid of what he will say. And that HAS to be coming from the Lord.

If this post has a point at all, (still up in the air if it does have one,) it's that rather than set up tests for God to prove Himself to you and sit on the sidelines waiting, it's a whole lot easier to just trust Him and move forward. I've done both and the latter is much less time-consuming! Our kids really are from Him. They really are here to glorify Him. Just like we are. When I look at it like that, I stop trying to find "fairness" in what happens. It helps me and I thought if I talk about it it might help you too.

Okay the end. I'll update when I know anything!