Day 4 post surgery...

Grace has had a good day today and at his point they are continuing to work towards extubating her tomorrow or Tuesday. Her nurse for the past few days (who has worked in the CICU at Boston Children's for 15 years) is convinced that Grace is going to go "kamakazi" (her words) and need to be weaned off of the sedatives and extubated all at the same time because she dislikes being intubated so much and therefore gets super agitated when the sedatives come off. This is the first day that our family is split up and I can't say that it's been easy. I miss not being able to see and touch Grace and sleeping next to David in a big way, but in God's strength we will get through this with a heart full of gratitude. I shed a lot of tears during worship this morning at church for a multitude of reasons... I was overflowing with gratitude for God's goodness, peace, and unmerited favor during such a difficult time in our lives and humbled that our God has experienced the heart break that a parent feels watching a child endure and even suffer. He not only watched His perfect Son endure suffering, but extreme suffering to the point of death. He could have easily reached down and plucked His Son off of that cross, cuddled him and healed His wounds, since that is the hearts desires of any parent when we see our child suffering (even if they are a big kid). If we had the chance to take away our child's suffering (even if it meant that we take the suffering on ourselves) we would all jump at the chance and yet God (who knows the most pure form of love possible), chose not to rescue His Son, so that we could have eternal life. That act of love blows my mind and makes Romans 8:32 "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" jump off of the page and into my heart. I worshipped today and wept because I know that I/we are not alone on this journey and that our Heavenly Father knows and sees our deepest heart ache and yet He has the perfect remedy, more of Himself! If our ultimate goal is to be as close to Christ as possible, "suffering" is a gift in that it gives us more of Him (the only gift that truly satisfies). I need more of Christ each moment because otherwise I don't know how I will be the parent that Abigail and Andrew need me to be here, while also trying to be the parent and wife that Grace and David need me to be from a distance. Please pray that the Lord would continue to strengthen David.  He misses Abigail and Andrew in a big way and while he loves being there with Grace, he hasn't been able to experience her joy and sweet smiles (because she's still knocked out), so he probably feels very much alone.  Thank you for letting me share my heart with you. Thank you for covering us in prayer! Your prayers have been felt as if they were a warm blanket, just coming out of the dryer with a fresh linen smell on a freezing cold day!


This picture brought me great joy today!  Our precious little girl looking less puffy and sweeter than ever.  Good thing she's still knocked out because that bee looking stuffed animal that they are using to prop up her tubes is scary!

Sorry this picture is side ways, blogger won't let me post the rotated version :-(