Quiver of Arrows: My Summer Delight

Summer has been an especially delightful time with my sweet Caleb!

Shortly after Caleb turned one he started getting cyclical fevers. The fever would come each month on the 27th, spike to as high as 105.6, last 5 days (3 days of high fever, a break for one day, and then one more day of a lower fever), and would be accompanied by mouth blisters on the inside of his mouth. My poor baby, though unaware of the calendar, was able to tell us the day before his fever would come that is was coming. For nearly 4 years, there was rarely a month that he didn't have his fever. And since his birthday is on the 27th, he had never celebrated a birthday without an accompanying fever. Caleb has what is known as PFAPA (Periodic Fever Aphthous Stomatitis, Pharyngitis, Adenitis Syndrome). You might imagine how this has affected his short life!

Nearing the end of his fours, the fevers started to become a little less predictable and further apart. Praise the Lord, our sweet boy got celebrate his 5th birthday fever free!

(These were from Caleb's 5th Wild Kratts Birthday we had for him at an aquarium!)

Instead of his fevers, however, we started to see our boy display uncharacteristic behavior for him. He would feel as though he was getting a fever, his eyes would become dark and sunken, he would be highly irritable, extremely hyper, unattentive, destructive, obnoxiously loud, generally defiant and abnormally emotional. During these days, he would rarely smile. Then as quick as it set in, it would leave and Caleb would be "himself."

I didn't understand what was happening for quite some time. I was quick to think he was just "rebelling" and even quicker to assume that something was severely affecting his body and we needed to figure it out. It took me a while to discover that while he was experiencing such odd behavior, he also had a mouth full of blisters just like the ones he has during his cyclical fever. This was so helpful for me. Instead of the constant battle inside me of fearing the state of his little heart or fearing what others thought of his behavior or my parenting, I grew in compassion for this boy of mine. I finally started to see that a lot of what was going on with him, he couldn't help. And we worked together to cope with what he could.

What does this all have to do with this summer, you might be wondering, afterall that is what I started with at the beginning of this post? Good question. Last summer, Caleb was affected the. entire. summer. by these crazy blisters and disturbing behavior. Last summer I was also battling a deep depression that wouldn't seem to lift. These two things were an especially challenging (overwhelming) combo!

This summer I am delighting in the ability to delight. I used to take joy for granted; but this summer I am consistently overwhelmed that God is helping me to experience joy again. I used to pompously think, "Just hope in the Lord." Now I know that it isn't as easy as that sounds. This summer I am overwhelmed by the truth that though I felt nothing last summer (except sadness and despair and sometimes not even those), that as a child of God, redeemed by grace, my lot was always secure in Jesus.

This summer I am delighting in domino races....