Hard Pressed...Not in despair-

April 28, 2013

Dear Ones,

  This last week was a busy one with the surgery team here working so hard to provide cleft lip and palate surgeries to several of our babies.  There were NICU and PICU nurses everywhere, there were OR nurses, surgeons, anesthesiologists, Pediatric Intensivists, Pediatricians, and Pediatric Residents.  The house was full and I loved having the opportunity to brush up on the news and happenings of the hospital world as I spent time with them.  We shared ideas, new techniques, equipment, (Thank you so much guys for the use of your i-stat while you were in house- what a great help that was! Such a treat.)  The evenings spent in the PACU here on the 5^th floor watching little ones recovering post operatively, and sharing information back, and forth, were wonderful. 

  As I stood one evening there in the PACU, holding a baby while his ayi went to eat dinner, one of the nurses asked me several questions about various events occurring in our Big House and then she asked me a very real question, “Mariah, does it ever just make you depressed to see all of this all around you, the hurt, the suffering, the things you can’t change?”   What a great question, and to be honest it is not the first time I have been asked…and the answer is, “No, not depressing.”  It is hard, it is real life, it is a reality that sin has created, it breaks my heart, it hurts, but depressing, no not depressing.  Depressing would be if there was no hope, if there was no God, if there was no salvation, no lessons learned from the hard things, no compassion, no Jesus- that would be depressing.  We talked more and I shared with her some of the harder moments from the last few months, the last four years, then I smiled and told her that for every one of those moments my Heavenly Father has given me abundantly more moments of thrill, of overwhelming love, of comfort, of compassion, and many of those have been right in the middle of the hardest ones because isn’t that how it works…His greatest work in my life is in the midst of the deepest valleys.  His light pierces through brightest in the middle of the darkest night.  I feel His arms pulling me up most when I have sunk deepest into the waters, often because I have taken my eyes off of Him and am looking at the raging storm all around me.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” 

2 Corinthians 4:7-10

  So dear friends, when I share the hard moments, the difficult things that bring tears, and some of the heartache, remember that God is using those same moments in your life, He is working in your heart, just as He is working in mine.  I must share so that you too have the opportunity to see and pray and trust that the God who created all things is GOOD, He is REAL, He is LOVE, and He is the God of HOPE, not of despair.

Loving you,

Mariah