As we head to Cincinnati Children's Hospital, I need you to know this

We may be headed to a Children’s Hospital for two of our kids, but we are ridiculously content and filled with a joy that doesn’t make sense. Dread does not reside within us. 

I can’t put it all into words but the last 3-5 years have been filled with so many downs. We didn't slide down the mountain, it felt like we were drop kicked off the side to land in a heap on the ground.  Bloody and bruised, we would climb halfway up again only be kicked off again, our stomachs dropping as we plummeted toward the hard, unforgiving earth. Again. 

andagain

andagain

andagain

andagain

We tried so hard and we were getting battle-worn in a very real way. That’s not to say we didn’t have amazing moments, I mean we moved into a new home and I gave birth to sweet Willow! Asher navigated the school environment with diagnoses being thrown at him and Zoe BEAT anxiety over and over. We’ve seen the goodness of the Lord in the hands and feet of you sweet people, too. So much undeserved good in the midst of it all. 

It's just been hard. And then we decided to have a Facebook "yard" sale to help fund our trip to Cincinnati (My goal was enough to cover our co-pays). I've had these sales before and it serves to clean out our home while hopefully making a little bit of cash. Our house rule is that if we aren't in immediate need, we give the items away and if we need the money for something specific, we sell them at a good cost. 

We set the prices low because we wanted it to be a mutual blessing and then...an explosion of giving started happening. If you bought $10 worth of items, you gave $20 (or more). Some people didn't buy a thing and mailed us a check before I could say, "no no, please, you don't have to do that!" As the sales were happening and checks and gift cards were literally flying through the mail slot, a friend who didn't know any of this was happening THAT specific day sent this Psalm to me with a star by the last line.

Psalm 66:8-12 

Bless our God, O peoples; 

let the sound of his praise be heard,

who has kept our soul among the living

and has not let our feet slip.

For you, O God, have tested us;

you have tried us as silver is tried.

You brought us into the net;

you laid a crushing burden on our backs;

you let men ride over our heads;

we went through fire and through water;

yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.*

Guys, those lines summed up our life over the past 5 years or so. Tested, tried, crushed, burdened, burned, drowned. But NOTHING has ever brought me closer to my God than adversity. Than lack. Than being stripped bare and hiding from the world (from God) in shame. 

Yet. 

Yet you have brought us out 

to a place of abundance. 

I looked up the definition of abundance and I kept coming across the word plenty.  So I looked up the definition of the word plenty and kept coming across the word abundance. 

Even when I wanted to scream "no, stop, we should be able to do this on our own and some of you have your own medically complex kids and lack and hard times, STOP," God was coming to me and saying, "my child, this is from me. Let them be obedient." And you gave us PLENTY. Out of the abundance of your heart, we had enough. (Anything left over will go toward the subsequent trips we'll be making). 

Just as important have been the prayers and hand written notes and shouts of encouragement and offers to stay in your homes in Cincinnati--an abundant supply of each. 

Humbling myself to accept help I didn't ask for was hard in a way I didn't imagine it would be.  If someone had come to me and said, "I can't accept the gifts that people are giving me in order to help," I would have been like "OF COURSE YOU CAN. LET THEM BLESS YOU, IT BLESSES THEM TOO."  In fact, I have said that. But when the tables turn, you realize what you believe and why.  You learn that humility doesn't always come in the form of lowering yourself so low that no one sees your struggle.  Sometimes it's letting every part of yourself be seen and then accepting help. 

Alllllllllllll that to say, heading to Cincinnati we are more than ok. We're going to take every free ticket the hospital will give us to parks and swim in the hotel pool and dream in IKEA and wander around the city and hit up Whole Foods and HAVE FUN for the 8 days we'll be there. 

Even though we are headed toward the unknown, I feel more joyful now than I have in a really long time, which doesn't make sense. I didn't know that all of these hardships were lining up to get me here.  In the middle of them I would have said, "no, it's not worth it; God, stop." But now...now that I'm outside of them and have been given this steadfast faith that is ROCK solid, I wouldn't trade those hard times for anything. 

If I had the opportunity to look back on my life as an old, old woman, I would see this time of hardship as a blip on the radar.  When asked if I would take it back for all that it earned me, I know older, wiser Courtney would say, "No way. I learned more in that season than all of the others combined. I know younger Courtney can and will withstand it, in the strength of our Lord." 

It can be hard to feel sustained in the here and now, but that's why we can't let our feelings guide us up the mountain.

Our mountain is waiting, our Guide goes before us and behind us and beside us...