The hardships I’ve been through, this past year especially, have felt like falling overboard in the middle of the ocean and plunged into icy depths. The undertow is stronger than my ability to push upwards, and am horrified to find my struggle only takes me deeper and deeper down. My only hope left is God, and without His help I will certainly drown. Maybe you’ve been there too. There are in life those moments that take all the breath from your lungs and all the strength from your body and soul. All the light of day becomes small fragmented beams that dance mockingly on the surface of what pulls you under.

Our sweet little Elias broke his collarbone last week. It was pretty rough to see him so pitiful and hurting. After his accident he wasn’t very responsive, which was so scary for me to experience so soon after Jonathan’s emergency surgery and ICU stay. At the ER I watched him being scanned by the same machines that had just scanned my husband and hooked up to heart rate and oxygen monitors, all of which felt eerily similar to what I’d just been though. As I sat in the ER room waiting for answers about our son, I wondered why God would allow this to happen as I was just finding healing from nearly losing my husband. I couldn’t hold back the tears as my precious son grimaced in pain and the surroundings took me back to those trying days in the ICU.