There are people who are constantly facing challenges. Just when it seems like one challenge may be ending, another one arises. They try to have emunah, but it is extremely difficult. A woman told me she is dealing with multiple challenges for many years and is constantly trying to give herself chizuk to be able to accept them properly. She has been learning emunah every day with a group of friends for many years. They got to the last page of the last volume of the particular book they were learning and then asked each other what they would do the following night. Nobody was sure what they should learn next because they wanted to learn emunah. Someone then said, maybe tomorrow the new volume would come out. The next day, one of these women was in a bookstore late in the afternoon and she saw, in the back, one of the men from the store opening a box that just arrived. And amazingly, it was the next volume of the book they had been learning. It is so clear how much Hashem values people trying to work on their emunah. Even if they have their ups and downs, they want to react properly and they are trying to give themselves the tools to do so. They are going to be rewarded for all eternity for every ounce of effort they put in to trying to increase their emunah. An episode which took place in her life was able to give her a lot of chizuk . She is a single mother with one of her children being special needs. A few years ago, she was told that this daughter of hers needed a very complicated surgery that would not be covered by her health insurance. Furthermore, although a local hospital would be able to do it, there was a specialty doctor in New York who was highly recommended for this particular procedure. The woman did not have anywhere near the money that it would cost to do that procedure and to fly to New York, but she knew she had to do the best for her child. She was able to raise part of the money and then, through an askan , got the hospital to agree to take just a down payment, allowing her to pay the rest later. The rest would be an exorbitant amount of money, but she knew she had to do it for her daughter. So she flew with her daughter to New York which was itself a very difficult experience. Her daughter needs to be held down to prevent her from doing damage and that was an extremely difficult task in an airport and on a plane. They finally arrived at the hospital and prepared to meet the doctor who would perform the surgery. When the doctor checked her daughter he said he saw some congestion and couldn’t do the surgery like that. The woman said how difficult it was for her to get there with her daughter and that she would stay somewhere local for the next couple of days until the congestion went away. The doctor then said he wouldn’t be able to do the surgery for another three months. The woman said she felt like that was the worst thing that could have possibly happened. Besides for all of the time and money she spent getting there, not to mention all the difficulties transporting her daughter, now she was going to have to do it again? To make matters worse, the doctor told her he wouldn’t do the surgery until he was paid in full. The woman said she was told she could pay later. The doctor, as well as the other hospital staff there, treated her very nastily and she left very upset. She told the askan that got her the appointment of how nastily they treated her. Eventually, she came back and got the surgery done according to the terms of the original deal, paying only a portion of the cost up front. Baruch Hashem, the surgery went well and afterward she received a phone call from one of the heads of the hospital, apologizing for the way she was treated three months before. This head of the hospital told her, she didn’t want anyone walking away from them with negative feelings, so she asked if there was anything she could do to make it up to her. The woman replied she couldn’t afford the large balance that she owed the doctor as well as the hospital and would be very appreciative if she could help her with that. The woman said, “Consider it done.” And just like that, her entire bill was erased. She said, what she thought was the worst thing was really a salvation for her. She would have been in such large debt for such a long time to pay that bill. And now, she finished with it in a second. She tries to always remember that story so that even when it does get very difficult for her, she reminds herself it is always chesed Hashem, even when we don’t understand it.