A box of miracles

When we moved into our house six years ago, we painted every room in the house - except our own. I spend a LOT of time in our bedroom. Since the girls came along and we gave up our office, there's really no good place to work in our house. And since I work half-time from home, that's a lot of hours in our bedroom, in addition to the normal bedroom activities. (Sleeping, people! Get your minds out of the gutter!)

Anyway, the time has come to give that room a face lift, so after weeks of poring over paint swatches and samples and comparing fabrics, the weekend has finally arrived for the Great Bedroom Makeover. We're shipping the girls off to Grandma and Poppa's house for the weekend so we can get 'er done. (Before and after pics will definitely follow!)

In anticipation of this weekend, I've been trying to clean out the piles in our bedroom as time allows. But there's been one box I've been avoiding. The Diabetes Box. This is the box that I threw all of the books, packets of paperwork, extra medical supplies... even Rufus, the diabetic bear... into when we got Amelia's second "kind of diagnosis" of no diabetes. It's just been sitting there in the corner of our room because I don't know what to do with it.

I thought maybe I'd magically know what to do with it when the time came. And the time came tonight. But I still don't know. I pulled everything out. Then I cried. Then I put everything back in.

What do you do when you feel like you've been given a get out of jail free card, but there's no 100% guarantee your number won't be called again?

And perhaps even bigger for me, that box represents a real turning point in my faith. I've never shared this with anyone other than a couple of my closest friends, but a year and a half ago, something happened that completely shook my faith, more than any other event in my life up to that point. I was rattled to the point of complete depression and nearly threw in the towel on this God stuff.

There, I said it.

But. I didn't. Somehow, when I was truly at the last sip of the last straw, God drew me back in. It wasn't sudden. It was very gradual. But I started reaching out for help with some people I trusted. And I took some other steps to get my head and emotions back into a healthier place. It took time. Then God opened the doors for me to start writing more and more - which is so healing for me. Not to mention, most of what I write is based on His Words, so talk about faith-building.

It was all happening, slowly, and then... BAM.

Amelia. Diabetes.

But here's the thing. What should have broke the camel's back only gave the camel Strength. For somewhere, deep inside, that Faith that I had almost given up on suddenly became The.Only.Thing I could count on. When I thought my baby might be terribly sick, my heart broke into a million pieces, and some of those pieces may always be missing. But my Faith, my God, well, that sustained me in a way that I only hoped it ever could. Was I angry? Hell yes. Was I sad? Of course. But I've never felt stronger. Between my faith, my family, and all of the amazing friends who came alongside us, I felt my Father with me through every piece of bad news, every finger prick, every needle poke. My heart was sad and even broken, but never empty.

So that box? It's still there. I can't bring myself to throw any of it away. Not one thing. Maybe one day? I really don't believe Amelia will have diabetes. As much as I believe in God, I also take great stock in science and the chances are that she won't ever have it.

But I never want to forget all that that box represents. The broken heart, the shattered dreams, the fears... The love, the strength, the faith...

Yes, Amelia was healed, or maybe never sick. But her mom's healed heart, that was really the miracle performed.