This is one of the things I’ve heard the most on this journey with our daughter.
I never liked hearing it. I wasn’t sure why, but it just annoyed me … like God is allowing this suffering to better His plan … like God needs my daughter to be in pain and face death for the betterment of other people or us … and the list goes on and on.
I don’t think “everything happens for a reason” is scriptural or true.
Sure, God has a plan.
Yes, He sees the future.
Of course, the “steps of a righteous man are ordered by God.”
But, could it be that the hard things we go through are just that?? Hard things caused by life. Hard things directly related to one of the central truths of Christianity … the fall of man.
We are not exempt from hard stuff and tough times. We should expect them. Why? Because we live in a fallen world.
I think that God does know when we are going to face some very tough things. I think He hates that for us. He weeps with us. He wants it better. He always has our good in mind and the good of humanity.
God does not need to cause or allow pain in His children to further His plan. And, He doesn’t punish us by making us sick. The world does that. Life does that. And, of course, the enemy would want nothing better than believers to be dead.
I think that it’s all about how we handle the hard stuff that matters. How will we face the hard stuff? Most of all, will we bring glory to God through it all?
I do think people like to make sense of things by saying “everything happens for a reason.” It helps them to think that, like there’s going to be something good coming out of every bad situation. 
This is not always the case. A person doesn’t always become better because they go through some trial. It definitely always changes them, but mostly making them harder, angrier, less trusting, depressed, hopeless. 
As Christ-followers, of course, we would hope that this would not be how we would respond. We hope that we would run to God with all our might and desperately search for healing.
When bad things happen, God simply wants us to cling to Him. Yes, “all things do happen for the good of those who love Him.” Because, despite tragedy, God can heal … God will heal when those who love Him trust in Him.
And, yes, God will use our story and anyone’s story for His ultimate glory.
We’ve simply been trying to trust God through this past year. We’ve gotten angry. We’ve hurt. We still hurt. But, we are trusting in God to do His work through this situation and be glorified. Of course, He heals and will heal our La Petite Belle. There’s no doubt about that. I don’t know how or when, but He will.
We got some good news today, actually great news. We’ve waited so desperately for any bit of a good report.
I sit here right now in La Petite Belle’s ICU room. Her scope was a few days ago. She was intubated and on a breathing tube. She is currently on 24-hour dialysis to continuously pull off excess fluid that has built up due to multiple transfusions meant to stop her bleeding. 
Her tube was pulled out just a couple of hours ago. It was actually one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen because as soon as the tube was out, she began crying, and said, “I’m so happy. God is my healer.” It was pretty amazing. She then said, “God is my healer,” several times after that. She continues to amaze me. Her faith in God to heal her of this is so strong.
The whole team of doctors met today to look at all her biopsies from January until now and compare them. They needed to determine if the GVHD was getting better or worse and then the  continued course of treatment. 
Our doctor came in just a couple of hours ago to tell us that her GVHD was indeed better than it was when she was admitted in January. The bleeding issue she is having is more related to the meds she is on, mainly high-dose steroids, to cure the GVHD, more than the actual GVHD itself. The coarse of treatment will be to continue to wean steroids slowly and a couple of the other immunosuppressive drugs. They will monitor her bleeding and continue to transfuse as needed. This all was the good news we had so desperately been waiting to hear.
While we are quite a way off from being released and she has lots more healing to do, we are thankful for the news of the day.
The nurses have said how sweet she’s been. She holds their hands, and had our nurse today in tears, telling her a few times how much she loved her.
Thank you all SO MUCH for praying and interceding for our sweet girl. 
Please continue to pray. God is definitely her healer.
If you would like to financially support Katie’s (aka La Petite Belle) journey to healing, you can find more information here: www.gofundme.com/Katieg.  All funds go to cover medical bills and expenses.