"When your whole world is suddenly shaking, you need a firm place to stand. You see what it isin your life that's stable and true and strong enough to hold you up, and you reach for that, you run to that.In a way, life becomes simpler because the distractions fall away and you find out what you really believe."
So often—probably most often because it's so effective—God allows the difficult circumstances we walk throughin life to draw us much closer to Him, when we allow ourselves to see that He is there with us as we trek through them.
Such was the case for singer-songwriter Aaron Shust last year when—at the same time his grandmother was dying—his 2-year-old son Nicky suddenly became very ill.
In a YouTubevideo, Shust describes how he was on tour last September, sittingin the back of the bus ready to watch the kickoff of the NFL season when his wife, Sara called. "I could hear itin her voice, she was distraught," recalled Shust, "she said, 'something's wrong with Nicky, I'm taking him to Children's Hospital.'"
After a few weeks of tests, the news the couple received about their little boy was not good.
"They said he had a condition, a disease called Eosinophilic Esophagitis, and he was off the charts with a case that they said was more severe than any case they'd ever seenin any adult."
The condition is rare and painful, and because of it, Nick was not able to takein any nutrition. Multiple food formulas were tried but quickly rejected by the boy's body. He spent monthsin the hospital hooked up to feeding tubes.
"There were seven possible formulas they knew to give him, but his body rejected the first six—it was definitely getting scary. If he rejected the seventh, as far as we knew, there was no alternative. But, thankfully, his body did accept that seventh formula," explained Shust.
"It was definitely a tough time and it became our new reality, and again, God was our Rock. You don't understand what that means until you live it. It sounds like a clichéd thing that you're supposed to say if you're a Christian. But it was so true that—in the midst of turmoil that you would never think you'd be able to handle—you realize that God gives you the grace and the stamina to be able to stand up underneath things that you never would wish for."
The Shusts began researching what the effects would be of the steroids they were told their son would have to be taking for the rest of his life to manage pain. They brought himin for further tests when the doctors raninto something they could not explain.
Nicky's Eosinophilic Esophagitis was completely gone. Every one of his tests had come back normal."He did not have one trace of one of these bad cellsin his body whatsoever," said Shustin the video. And, smiling, he added, "They came short of saying it was a miracle; they just simply said… 'All I can say is that your son no longer has Eosinophilic Esophagitis,' and they turned around and walked out."
"We'd been praying like crazy," said Shust, "God answered our prayers by taking anincurable disease and obliterating it! It's pretty amazing."
Summing up the experience, Shust concludes, "Through all of the sickness and heartache and loss, my family has run to God and His promises. We've been forced to our knees, but this trial has made life exponentially more meaningful. And through it all, God has never left us. He brought strength to our weakness, peace to our uncertainty, and healing to our wounds. He's given us the grace to handle what we didn't believe we could. And ultimately, He's let us experience the joy of seeing His miraculous grace at work. To witness your own child being healed of something that doctors told you was permanent, painful andincurable—well, if that doesn't move your heart to worship, I don't suppose there's anything that will."
