The one where I start out all happy and end up depressing everyone by the end.

I have a serious aversion to clowns.  The week before Halloween, Tom and I went to San Antonio and while we were out walking one night there was a freakishly scary clown walking around and I just about jumped out of my skin.  My heart was pounding and I was hiding behind Tom like a two-year old clinging to her mama.  Even circus clowns freak me out.  I'm not sure where the paranoia about clowns came from but I am not alone as evidenced by the fact that one can buy this t-shirt:

Makes perfect sense to me.  So it is with great pride that I tell you I did not run screaming from the room when Curly the Clown showed up to make animal balloons for the kids tonight.  I could tell there were others who were trying to look very very intently at their food for fear that he would see them and they would die but I put on my game face and announced happily to Rachael, "Look!  A clown!"  I use this game face when getting on an airplane as well because I don't want to pass that particular phobia on either.

Anyway, Curly starts making the standard balloon animals and shapes.  A princess crown, a sword, a turtle and lady bug and then he starts making the really elaborate balloons and I found myself starting to warm up to Curly.  If I were really rich, I would fly him into my hometown to attend my kids' birthdays.  Or just to hang out and entertain me while I make dinner.  My world was opened up to not only see the beauty in a balloon but also to make room for one clown.  But only one.

Rachael is feeling great today.  I can tell she has lower energy but as I'm alone here I'm not minding that so much.  Her appetite has definitely decreased but she is still eating.  She gets headaches but they don't make her cry.  It seems her body is adjusting to interferon and amazingly, she is sailing through.

It's at this point I want to say, "Glory to God," and that is true but I struggle with that.  I'm just typing off the cuff here so go with me for a minute.  What if God does not answer prayers about health as a "favor" as it may be to those who pray but for some other reason?  We have all known of people who were deeply prayed over by many and who remained sick or died anyway.  I think this is what so many people struggle with.  Does God play favorites?  Why bless them but not me?  Or why bless me but allow my friends to experience the death of their three-month old daughter?  I think of the man whom Jesus told to get up and walk, and the man did just that for the first time.  Was there someone who was also crippled who truly believed and desired to have the same done to him but remained lame?  How did he feel?  It just makes me think there must, MUST be some greater purpose to healing than simply to make the sick well.  I don't have the answer.

Cancer is so indiscriminate.  Just in this house there are so many countries represented.  There are middle-class white people like me here.  There are single moms.  There are alcoholics.  But they all have their children here and they all pray for healing.  And some of these kids will die anyway.

How can I claim God's blessings in my life and then look at the 13-year old girl who was just told she has to have chemo and will now lose her hair.  After the surgeries and the radiation burns, now this.  We had a good day, yes, but my heart is heavy.

It's not that I'm ungrateful to God for answered prayers, I just don't understand how or why.