Friday, November 28, 2014

My Feelings of Abandonment

There are days when I wonder if Heavenly Father has just completely left me alone.  He has given up on me or something.  That's the only thing I can think of, because for the past three days Emma has been very sick.  She says that she is in a tremendous amount of pain in her chest after she eats or drinks, so she refuses to do it.  I have taken her to two different doctors now, and both are telling me the same thing.  Have her eat, drink, rest, blah, blah, blah.  Yeah, how do I do that when she refuses and starts screaming that it hurts and runs to the bathroom to puke what little she's already eaten because she ends up gagging herself?  I can't force her to eat.  I have prayed and prayed and prayed for answers, for guidance, for something.  NOTHING.  Literally.  N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

Have I been abandoned?  The doctors keep brushing me off.  "She looks fine," "There's nothing wrong with her," "Keep giving her antibiotics for the possibility that she has pneumonia and 'encourage' her to eat and drink."  They even did a chest x-ray and a urine analysis.  They ran a flu test and a strep test.  Both negative. Encourage her?  Okay, I'm encouraging her.  I'm begging her.  I'm crying, I'm throwing laundry baskets, I'm threatening to let them put a needle in her arm, but she still won't because she's too afraid to eat or drink because it hurts.  WTH?!

Which brings me back to my original question: Have I been abandoned?  Why won't Heavenly Father give me SOME sort of little clue?  Why won't he help me figure out how to get my daughter to eat or drink to alleviate the sunken cheeks and dry, bleeding lips?  Why won't he let the pain in her chest subside long enough to allow her to eat something?  I guess this is the question that any parent asks God when their child is very sick.  And, yet, my child is very healthy for the most part, and for that reason and many others, I am truly blessed.  I know that I need to focus on that.  I know that I need to quit thinking that I am being abandoned, and start having some faith.  But, I DO have faith--that's the thing!  I KNOW with every fiber of my being that if Heavenly Father wanted to, he could heal her right now.  I know that he can do anything he wants to do.  I just don't think he WANTS to do anything, and I need to figure out what kind of lesson he is trying to teach me through my child.

Okay, I am done now.  Any of you that are a little less frustrated than I am, please keep Emma in your prayers.  She could really use them.  Oh, and yes, I've had Mike give her two priesthood blessings so far.  Nothing.  What am I missing?


UPDATE:
Although it was a very rough time, we finally found out what was going on with Emma after we had her checked into Cook Children's Hospital in Fort Worth.  She had esophagitis, which is essentially cold sores and canker sores all up and down the inside of her esophagus.  She couldn't eat or drink anything, so she was severely dehydrated.  She stayed in the hospital for four days.  I know that Heavenly Father is always watching over me, even when I think he's not.  She is healthy again, we were able to pay for most of the medical bills without any trouble, and it hasn't come back.  I am tremendously blessed.  It's just hard to see that when one is in the thick of their trouble.  I am grateful I was able to get through it relatively unscathed, and that my baby is all better.