Snorkel....

I have had a week.
You know the kind.

My snorkel has been taking on water with each wave that hits...
making it hard to breathe...
And the brief moment after it fills,
I panic.

Trying to remember the next step...
Scrambling.
Until I remember...
And then I force the water out....
Push it with prayer...

I breathe.

I felt completely numb this week in Denver.
The words,
The plans,
The advice...
It felt ice-cold to me...

I feel tired.

I feel frustrated.

I feel defeated.

Parklen is not complete.
and although that is true,
his illness is not at its worst.
He is not as bad as he once was.
Which makes things tricky.

It means that....once again,
his future is uncertain.
It means that for now,
We wait.

We maintain,

We tread water.

Clearing the water as it comes...
pushing it out so that we can breathe.

The doctor talked about some future options and places we may have to go...
but the if and the when are not known,

We convinced him to sign off on Parklen playing baseball this summer.
He said, "Yes, lets give it a try. He will probably get sick...but lets just see."
So.
There you have it.

The depths of the way I feel are hard to explain...
It makes the "how was Denver" question difficult to answer...
It makes the "how is Parky" question hard too.

For now,
We are just going to be excited about baseball.
Excited for the chance for Parklen to be included.
and we are going to focus on that.

Yesterday at church the sermon was "How do we respond to unanswered prayers?" 
It was a message spoken straight into my heart....
Because God doesn't always answer things in the way we'd like.
and we sang my favorite song Mercies in disguise, because if I am being real...
Although hard,
although difficult and oh so painful...
I believe with my entire being that this is true..

Sometimes 
blessings come through raindrops,
His healing comes through tears,
a thousand sleepless nights is how you know that He is near...
and sometimes...
the trials of this life,
are His mercies in disguise.

It is never easy to find peace in the chaos..
or calm in your storm...
but when you do,
God is there.