Accomplishing the Impossible

Our paperwork is set to be mailed in this week! The state then has thirty (working) days to issue our license!! The end of this leg of our journey is near!

Someone asked me the other day how I "was going to handle another one?" Though it caught me off guard, it was a timely question; just a few days before I'd asked myself that same question:

We'd had a late afternoon visit to the doctor--Katie's ear tubes were draining and she was running a fever. A little background--in the first year of her life, Katie has been to the pediatrician's office 21 times! Nothing major is wrong with her, mostly ear infections, thus the tubes--which were put in December 29th. Mid-January she was diagnosed with a sinus infection. We were back at the doctor on this particular Wednesday (note here, Eric has class on Wednesday nights, so I was alone with our girls) because the antibiotic she'd been put on wasn't working. I was understandably frustrated when the doctor agreed and put her on different round of antibiotics.

Off the four of us went to the pharmacy...well, four pharmacies to be exact. It took that many before we found one that had the medicine she needed! By the time we got finished it was late, we were hungry, and this momma wasn't about to cook! We stopped by Firehouse Subs (again, it was Wednesday; kids eat free!) filled our bellies and headed home for bed. My thoughts were dominated, after this not-so-out-of-the-ordinary afternoon, with, "How in the world would this have looked with another kid in tow?"

Looking back, the reality is that it probably wouldn't have looked that different than it was. However, I begged my dearest friends to, "tell me I could handle it!?" Bless them; they did.

As I've thought more about it, though, I'm not sure that's where the Holy Spirit wants me...knowing "I can do it." I think the reality of the situation is that it seems un-do-able. It is un-do-able apart from dependence on Him. That sounds trite; not what I'm aiming for at all. The reality of the situation is that, as Eric and I have talked about it, we can't look back on anything in our lives able to say, "We did that completely dependent on God." That's a humbling thing to admit--we were both raised in Christian homes by Dads and Moms who loved us. Yet, we can't think of a time when we let ourselves depend wholly on our Heavenly Father? Unbelievable!

I'm reminded of the sermon we heard about the man with the withered hand. Jesus asked him to stretch forth his hand. Impossible. The language in Mark is that, as he stretched out his hand (obeyed), it was healed (he was able to do the impossible). We're trusting that as we obey, God will enable the impossible to be done once again.

So, "How am I going to handle another one?" I guess the answer is, I'm not. I'm trusting, for the first time in my life, my Daddy to give me grace to deal with each child He's gifted me with each day He gifts me with them--including the three I'm dealing with on this day.