Walking with God

"This is a season. This is a season. This is a season." 

It keeps running through my head like a mantra.  We are walking with God through a difficult season, knowing that He is always faithful.

Last week Pip was placed with a nasogastric (NG) feeding tube.  We watched his formula intake drop from 26-28 ounces a day, to 18-20 ounces a day, and finally to 10-15 ounces a day--and only that much because we were forcing it down him with a syringe.  And he was getting good at blocking that syringe with his tongue.

It was a feeding tube or a hospital admission.  What kind of a choice is that?  Of course I want him home.  

God knows I tried.  I tried to nourish my child.  I watched him go from being a healthy, happy baby, to being on a feeding tube in less than three months.  This thing, this "weally, weally bad FPIES," as his brother would say, hit us hard and fast. 

The hope has been that with stronger reflux meds he'll resume eating enough on his own soon and we can get rid of the tube.  The GI specialist hoped it would only take a week.  Tomorrow is a week, and he has a recheck then.  His oral intake has decreased.  The opposite of improvement. 

I don't know why.  I'm doing everything I can.  I've learned there's a camp that believes that feeding tubes are a lazy parent's way out.  I cried when I read that. So much sweat and so many tears went into to trying to get Pip to take in enough to stay hydrated, let alone grow and thrive. 

I'm overwhelmed and discouraged.  But I'm not angry, and I'm thankful that that emotion hasn't cropped up.  I wonder why all of this is happening, but not in a "why has God done this to us and him?" sort of way.  I wonder what the bigger picture is.  How God will use this.  Because I know that he will.  

I also read a post recently by a Christian counselor claiming that there are some things, like life trauma, and the depression it can lead to "lower a person's tolerance for walking with God."  I believe the opposite to be true.  We might not be the bubbliest people you've ever met at the moment, but it is in these times that God draws us in the closest.  It might not look that way to the world, but Scripture affirms it's truth.  Jesus sought out the hurting, and there is tremendous comfort in that.

So in this season we are drawn close to Him.  In the midst of the lost sleep, the worry, the heartache, the tears, and the unknown, He is drawing us.  In all of it, we are pursuing and walking with God, just as He is with us.