"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."
Mahatma Gandhi

Another boring day for the most part. Isaac is having digestion issues. He's not digesting the milk they're giving him properly. They're going to give him an enema to "get things moving". Poor guy. So much in his short little life. Hopefully it will help.

He's still up and down on the ventilator. It's going to take him a while I think to be ready to come off the stronger breathing support. Overall though, he continues to do well. His issues are all pretty standard and the doctors and nurses are used to dealing with them.

The haze that has surrounded this experience is beginning to lift and Jaska and I are starting to regain our wits (or at least trying to:). We are trying to come up with a game plan for long term. This journey is going to last months and possibly beyond and we need to get our feet under us to tackle what is coming. Our friends and family have gone far and beyond in our behalf (thank you so much all of you--your help has meant everything to us these first few weeks as we've tried to process this. We could not have done this without your help.) but we can't rely on them forever. At least not to the extent we have been.

Jaska and I have talked about how some trials you just try to survive--you just "get through it" and breathe a sigh of relief when it is over. Other trials need to get through to you. It's not enough to survive--you have to thrive--in spite of it. This is definitely one of the latter.

We'll sit there and look at each other and say, "How? We are not strong enough. We are not courageous or patient enough. How can we possibly do this?" And then we realize that that is irrelevant. We become what we are not because we must. We become those things because there is nothing else to do--because God requires it, because our family requires it, because it isn't enough to just survive--that is not why we have trials--and because deep down inside we know we in fact can do this. We are simply terrified of what it will do to us. We have been and will be broken down in every conceivable way. Every fault and weakness is made bare and we cannot hide from it. It is not comfortable, let me assure you. I feel like a rock in a tumbler. I can only hope that at the end of this road I am smooth and polished. I realize that much of that outcome is entirely up to me.

"Nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted." 2 Nephi 4:19

We know this is God's will for us--I trust what he has in store for me and my family. That doesn't mean I'm not scared of it though :)

I have heard people say often that God does not put upon us more than we can bear. I thought for a time this meant I would be spared the scariest and most difficult of circumstances because I was sure I could not bear it. Then I heard a simple phrase added to this refrain by Richard G. Scott of the quorum of the twelve apostles. I can't find the exact quote, but he essentially said that God will not put upon us more than we can bear, with His help. I feel God's help. I feel it every day. With that help, I can do anything. "And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot instruct me?" Nephi 17:51.