I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS:

My seven year old son, Joshua, was born with a cataract in his left eye.  In the first 2 years of life he had undergone 5 surgeries for various purposes to restore his sight.  We -- and others -- have been praying for him all these years, but here we are 7 years after first discovering his situation, and things have only gotten worse.  He now has a detached retina, requiring yet another surgery June 25th.
The surgeon's concern is that Joshua has something called Persistent Fetal Vasculature Syndrome (PFVS).  Children who are born with this are usually visually impaired.  Thankfully, Joshua only shows evidence of this condition in one eye, but rarely, says the doctor, is this condition contained to just one, though.  There's a lot of medical mumbo-jumbo to state this: the condition causes problems with the eye structure, thus rendering it blind.

I've never been so scared in all my life as I am now.  I have fought with some bad dudes while arresting them; I have considered the fight that would be war if one of the large men I needed to arrest wanted to fight.  I was scared in those situations, but I trained and was prepared for the worst.  But I have never been this scared, because I was not mentally prepared for what Joshua is facing today.  Give me a "bad guy" any day of the week over this.

I've never cried or prayed as hard as I have the past week and a half.  And the questions are, "Why God?  Why not answer?  If you can heal, why don't you?"  I know these questions are not limited to me, for millions of people around the world are asking the same.

I sat my son down last evening -- just the two of us.  I asked him to not be silly for just 5 minutes (he doesn't like heart-to-hearts).  I apologized to him for something I had recently said to him.  I cried with him and admitted I my fears.  I encouraged him to be "strong and courageous", and that it's ok to be scared.  Courage is what we do when we are scared of something.  Courage is what God wants from us.  Finally, I told him, "Joshua, no matter what happens, I will never ever leave you alone.  I will never ever abandon you.  I promise you that you will not have to walk through this life alone."  We cried together.  We hugged.  It was truly one of those really precious moments I will forever cherish.

For some reason, God has chosen not to work a miracle.  Yet?  I don't know.  Maybe never.  However, if God chooses to NOT heal Joshua's eye, that is not proof that He doesn't love him.  After all, his other eye has vision, his brain is intelligent, his legs run, his arms lift, his heart beats, and his lungs breathe.  I'd say those are giant proofs that God still loves Joshua.

I have no doubt that God hears our prayers.  I -- we -- don't know why God isn't answering the way we hope he will.  Could it be possible that God knows something we don't?  Could it be that God knows Joshua would otherwise never trust Jesus Christ for salvation if he had perfect eyesight?  Would I choose to trade his temporal eyesight for his eternal life in Christ if I knew that was the reason for his partial blindness?  In a hot second!

Through it all, though, God has promised us two very simple, yet encouraging, truths: "I will never leave you, nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5 & Deuteronomy 31:6), and "I am with you always" (Matthew 28:20).  My son has complete assurance that I am with him, that I will always walk by his side whenever he is in need, for as long as I am alive, for as long as I have physical ability.  My wife would say exactly the same.

Can God be trusted? 
I say He still can, for we will never walk alone!