And Then I Saw It...

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overthrow you. When you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you." Isaiah 43:2

I woke up around 4:15 this morning to an upset eight year old conversing with me as though I'd been awake for hours. Usually, when he needs something in the middle of the night or early morning before I'm up, he does the normal shoulder tap accompanied by a gentle whisper of "mommy, are you awake?" but this time was different. He was already in full conversation mode by the time my left eye sluggishly began to open. "What?" I asked, and then I heard him continuing with "...and I think I threw up..." at which point his little voice began to drift off again. At this point, I wasn't even sure what was real and what was just a vomit detail of a dream gone gross, but there it was again, this time louder - "and it's on my bed..." One eye fully open now, I asked him to repeat the problem. "I threw up and it's in my bed," he loudly responded. Surprisingly, even then, I was still a little confused about what was happening and I wondered how long he had been talking into my nearly deaf ear. "Did he say he threw up and it's in his bed?" I asked my husband with a few firm pats on the back to make sure he was also awake. "Huh?" was his barely audible reply. As the seconds passed, I became increasingly aware of my consciousness and somehow managed to open both eyes. Coordination absent, I got out of bed and stumbled through the dark hotel room, certain not to miss the shoes left out in the middle of the floor. After I groggily found my way to the bathroom, I gave my eyes a good rub, flipped on the light, and called my son over to me. And then I saw it...

Suddenly, my eyes went from barely open to bulging out of my paling face as my mind scrambled to process what stood before me. Covered from head to toe and ear to ear, I'd never seen anything like it He didn't just throw up, he apparently had a slumber party in it, and it was in this instant that I remembered the bed. Oh, the bed. After I routinely checked for fever and got him in the shower with soap and scrubby, I nervously turned to walk back out. By now, my husband was propped up in bed but still confused, so to clear things up for him I flipped on the main hotel room light, and there it was. An ordinarily white down comforter was speckled with shades of grey, yellow, and brown, but this wasn't even the grossest thing to happen yet. As I walked over to the bed, I was stopped in my tracks by something warm and mushy between my toes. Unable to take another step or actually look down to see what I already knew had happened, I locked eyes with my husband and silently informed him that his time in bed was over and he needed to get up NOW. While we worked together to clean up a scene no one should ever have to clean pre-coffee, Ashton made his way out of the tub and back to where we worked. Fortunately, the removal of absolutely everything in his stomach and an early morning swim in the tub brightened his mood dramatically and he was all smiles...and chatter. "Can you beLIEVE how much I threw UP? That's just crazy!" he chirped in wonder as he observed us dutifully finishing up the sanitation process. "Bed. We're all going back to bed," someone, maybe me, said. With his bed out of commission, we all piled into ours and curled snugly up to rest. And then I saw it...

Though I would never choose to be woken up at 4 a.m. by a vomiting mess, I would also never trade the subsequent snuggling and comfort of being close to my two favorite boys. As a little foot brushed against mine and an elbow went into my back, I couldn't help but smile over the two sweet blessings that were curled up next to me in bed, a moment of gratitude I wouldn't have experienced had the prior not occurred. What a stinky mess it was that landed the three of us tightly into a queen size hotel room bed, but how precious the result, and in that moment I was reminded of God's amazing goodness during our life's storms. For the past few weeks, I seem to be facing one storm after another, and at the end of each one, I'm blessed to see the beautiful colors of a new rainbow. In Isaiah 43:2 God says this: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overthrow you. When you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you." The NLT version says it like this: "When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up," but notice it doesn't say if you go through deep waters, rivers of difficulty, and fires of oppression; it says when you go through. In this life we will go through hard days and challenging times (John 16:33), but we don't go through them alone. If you have a tongue that will praise Him in the storm, you will invariably see the beauty in every situation. Ask Him to give you eyes that see so that in your own trying times you finish cleaning the mess and then see what it is He wants you to see. It might just be something precious and beautiful. Don't pray the storm away; praise Him in it.

Heather Gent

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