Ethan's Family's Faith

[rhetoricfemme]

Ethan is one of the children with cancer who I post about frequently asking for prayers. It was recently discovered that his cancer may have returned, and his family is still waiting on an answer as to the cause of this fluid (where the cancer would be) around his heart.

I've never had to be in this particularly heart-wrenching and life-changing situation, so I can't even imagine how it feels, how difficult it all is. But for months, I've worried about Ethan's mother's faith in God to handle all things. Her posts are persevering, but some days barely so, and while she'll eventually bring mention of God getting them through, but it also feels like she is just holding on to so much anger instead of handing it all over to God. Tonight she posted that she doesn't believe God can prevent cancer, but that He can help to heal us of it, and that she's sure Ethan is going to get better.

I feel like her little boy is going to beat this, too, and I pray that he does. I just worry that her faith in God is more of a happy idea helping her to get through the day. It frightens me to think that if Ethan has to get so sick before he gets better, or if God forbid, he passes away, that this woman's faith in God is going to go out the window, and then what? I could be completely wrong about all of this, it's just how I've been reading her posts for months, but to me this is picture that comes off of her words. And I hope that I'm wrong and pray that it isn't really like this.

Please pray for Ethan's mother (I think her name is Kim) to find Strength in God, for her to realize that regardless of the outcome, Ethan's pain is going to make all of them stronger people in the long run, and that nothing happens without God allowing it so. That while our pain causes pain to Him, that it all means something in the end.

[url="http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ethanjostad"]Link to Ethan's Caring Bridge website, maintained by his mother.[/url]