ER trip.

Nora has had a fever on and off for a few days just like all of the kids.  Today, though, it spiked randomly and quickly to 105.  My mom was here and Jeni was able to go with me to the hospital.  Thankfully she just has a very treatable urinary tract infection and will hopefully be feeling better by morning.  My poor girl just hasn't been herself and I'm ready for her to have some energy back.

Mabel was also better today.  She actually drank from her bottle a couple of times and smiled at us periodically throughout the day.  Her body felt a little stronger as I held her and she even pooped on her own!  She's on an antibiotic too so I think that's helping and I'm so glad.  

The last few days have just been exhausting.  It's been a whirlwind.  We started having the home care (hospice) nurses come over the weekend.  It wasn't that we planned for them to start when Mabel was sick but in a way, I was thankful they did.  They got to see her when she was ill and will see her when she's well.  Everyone seems so helpful and I'm just thankful for the extra hands and eyes that will be integrating into Mabel's care.  One of the many perks to home care was that her medicines come straight to our door and I don't have to go out to the pharmacy.  It seems silly but it is just one more stressful thing that I am so glad to be able to avoid.

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The other night Nora was talking to my mom on the phone.  Braden was jumping around being loud and crazy as usual and Mabel started the cry.  Nora said to my mom in the sweetest way, "Ugh!  If mommy needs help it's going to be so hard to find someone!"  

Bless her heart.  She is my sweet sweet girl.  She cares about me, worries about me, thinks about me.  She's so sensitive to me and I'm grateful.  And also sad.  

I wish I could change it all for her and make it different.  And yet, in so many ways I don't wish that at all.  She is learning empathy, compassion, strength.  It's all in a way that I wish wasn't so yet I know she will be pleasantly ahead of many of her peers in life when it comes to issues of the heart and the spirit.

I'm thankful for the molding that happens even in the trials of our life.  Even in these small, precious children.

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God is so near.  

I have felt His whisper and His nudging in the last couple of days.  It hasn't been in ways that I have ever felt Him before but it has been in ways that I have needed for now.  He is intimately close to me.  I felt Him in the arms of my husband as I wept into his chest, knees buckling and sobs overtaking.  I felt Him in the gentle cheek rub that Braden gave as I heaved myself into convulsing cries in the middle of the floor, wrapped in quilts that were wrapped in sickness.  I felt Him as I held Nora's body when she was sleeping.  

And I felt Him when holding Mabel and making choices for her; for us- that were so difficult and so painful.

This God that has met me time and time again exactly where I have needed Him to is a God that I have come to love in all new ways.  I'm not sure I can adequately explain the depth of His grace and His knowing.  But what I need to write in order to remind myself is that in this time that often feels dark and heavy, He is here.  He is aware.  He is mine.

And thankfully I am His.  

Thank you for your continued prayers for all of us.  It has been a really hard week and I feel like we are finally on the other side of it all.  The emotional battle is quite easily as hard as the physical sickness most days.  But we are pulling through stronger, as always.  For that I'm grateful each and every time. 

 ^"Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him."

-James 1:12