Trying to Trust

Yesterday was a tough day, emotionally, for me. First of all, Eden didn't sleep well. She was awake from 4:00-5:30 crying - she's been so used to being held whenever she cries that she's completely spoiled. Our good sleeper now needs sleep training, which completely stinks. I am so thankful that we never had to do this when she was little, but it's still hard to listen to her cry and know that if I just went in there and rocked her, she'd sleep. But I keep thinking of that whole give-a-man-a-fish/teach-a-man-to-fish thing and realizing that I need to let this run its course.

Because none of us slept well, 7:30 came very early. Bryan brought Eden into bed with us and we were snuggling as a family when I realized she had bled through her bandage and the hospital sock on top of the bandage. I was pretty sure that wasn't supposed to happen. I called the hospital and they asked us to bring her in for dressing take-down a day early.

Turns out Eden has hematomas on both of her palms. This may or may not be (but probably is) impeding the grafts from attaching in those areas. We are headed back to the hospital today for another look by Eden's actual surgeon, but from what yesterday's attending surgeon told us, the likely outcome is more surgery. This is hard for us because we thought we were going to be coming out of this nightmare this week. I was planning to go back to work on Thursday (I still might, depending on how today goes and what the surgeon decides to do). We are getting a little bit impatient for this to be over, to be able to return to normal life. But I know that God has a big plan, bigger and better than ours. I am trying to completely trust Him in this - I know that He's in control and that He should be (and I shouldn't!). But I am struggling with impatience. This is probably a sign of my imperfect trust, my inability to completely turn over control of the situation. I'm trying, Lord!

We are praying that today the hematomas look miraculously better (the one that was bleeding yesterday doesn't seem to be bleeding as badly today) and there will be no more grafting right now. But we are also trying to be prepared for them to look worse, for surgery to be certain, and for a longer battle with this nightmare.

As I type this I keep thinking of the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. This is where I am trying to turn my heart every day:

Daniel 3:15-18
"Now if you are ready, at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery and bagpipe and all kinds of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, very well But if you do not worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire; and what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?"

Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up."

This Shane & Shane song (aptly titled "Burn Us Up") says it in an amazingly powerful way:



The point is, if Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego can face certain death in reliance on God's plan, and recognize even in the face of a firey furnace that following God does not mean that our comfort is paramount but that His glory IS, our little family can deal with a slightly longer healing period for our baby girl.