This year has required endurance. There were many stressors in 2020 that individually would have been difficult enough for most people. The amount of life changes that happened simultaneously for many families was staggering.
I am no stranger to adversity and unexpected changes. When I held my daughter for the first time, it was a lovely, peaceful moment. It was soon interrupted by fears and worries when I heard the words Down syndrome, congenital heart defect, congestive heart failure, and open-heart surgery. The world, as I knew it, had changed and didn’t calm down for months.
My daughter’s breathing issues caused alarm for me time and time again. For a dozen years, respiratory viruses caused bronchitis, pneumonia, oxygen requirements, and many hospital admissions for her.
Every time we faced a health crisis with my daughter, I prayed that it would end quickly. I wanted the hard stuff to be over and life to be normal. Ultimately, I wanted peace of mind, and to know that things were fine with my daughter. I wanted her to be okay. If she were, everything in my world could fall back into place. But things often didn’t resolve quickly, much to my dismay.
A few years ago, I sat in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit parent lounge with my husband. A team of doctors were placing my daughter on a ventilator due to respiratory failure from a common cold virus. This was the second time we had been in that scenario. The first time nearly took my daughter’s life, and left us in limbo for weeks. It was a grueling month in the hospital. Since that crisis, a ventilator had become my worst nightmare, and I never wanted her to need it again. When our normally smiling doctor took a seat next to us in the parent lounge with a serious expression, I knew something was wrong. Things were changing for the worse with our little girl, and the doctor’s update let me know I was in the nightmare once more.
I cried into my husband’s chest and declared, “I can’t do this again.”
Photo credit: Evana Sandusky, Special Purposed Life.
Immediately after I said the words, I regretted it. I know the words we say are important and have the potential to give life. However, I was in a weary, scared, and stressed state. A more accurate statement would have been, “I don’t want to do this again.” I’m sure my daughter in her hospital bed had similar thoughts.
There have been several events this year that have led me to cry out for things to be different, normal, or better. I have struggled with the lack of control of my circumstances.
As we near the end of the year, I hope for a happier and easier 2021. Yet in prayer, I have felt God ask me one question: Are you ready to endure even more? I don’t like that question. I want an assurance that the easy part is imminent. Hasn’t this gone on long enough?
We’re never promised “easy” in life, even as Christians. As the parent of a daughter with special and medical needs, I may understand that better than anyone. In the past, I have endured much more than I thought my heart could take. Yet here I am, on the other side of those trials. As I wait for the pandemic craziness to settle down, I am reminded of the simple fact that God is the hope. The easier way isn’t the hope. Faith in God is the way to endure.
For that reason, I look to Him to help me through the coming months. I am asking God to show me how to spiritually train to build endurance through the tough stuff. When I am feeling overwhelmed, I ask God for more wisdom and peace.
As we end the year, I want to encourage you as well. Pray for your own endurance, so you can keep fighting in battles. Allow God to tell you how to endure, and not simply look for the easy way out.
Evana is a wife and mother of two children. Since becoming a parent, Evana has spent many hours driving to specialty appointments, praying beside a hospital bed, and learning about her children’s diagnoses. Evana is also a pediatric speech-language pathologist and serves children with autism, feeding disorders, and other developmental delays. You can connect with Evana on Twitter, Facebook, and her blog, A Special Purposed Life. You can also read more about her family’s story in her book, Badges of Motherhood: One Mother’s Story about Family, Down syndrome, Hospitals, and Faith.
