Crohn's Hospital Day 2 Update

Our Crohn's Hospital Stay Update...

I hope I'm not annoying with these updates. I sometimes feel like a broken record, like "please pray for us. We're withdrawing again from the friend bank, sorry!" Ugh, so if I'm being annoying, I really am sorry. I don't intend to be. Most of the time these start out as Facebook status updates and end up obnoxiously long so I put them on my blog instead.

Anyways, today was day 2 of Brandon's 4th hospital stay for Crohn's Disease. Crohn's is a no-fun, nasty, mean, no-good disease. He feels bloated, in pain, and hungry. Really, really hungry. The kind of hungry where you don't want to eat because you feel sick, but you're just hungry. And, as someone put it today, "90% of the commercials on the hospital tv channels are about food." Totally true.

The GI team and the GI surgeons have both been by to see him and he's basically been told that there's nothing additional that the medical side of the teams can do, and that he will need to undergo another surgery to remove the part of his small intestines that is scarred over with scar tissue.

We've known it was coming for a long time. The signs and symptoms were all there and we were on pins and needles waiting for this to happen. So here we are, in the hospital again and everyone is finally agreeing that no, this isn't great quality of life, and its time to do something about it.

So we wait for his surgeon to come tomorrow to tell us when he will have surgery, and we pray - feverishly and without ceasing - that his procedure will go just as smoothly as last year's and that he will NOT have to have an ostomy bag. If you don't know what that is, Google it, and then you'll know why we are praying so hard. Please, please join us in prayer over this. We serve a mighty God, the ultimate Physician and Healer and we know He is able to do anything.

Thanks for putting up with my obnoxious emotional posts and for praying with us and for us. Just yesterday, my best friend reminded me that ironically, it is sometimes the toughest times in life where it is revealed to us just how blessed we are. I couldn't agree more. Although we're facing the unknown in Brandon's health, and fear over our finances, and anxiety over keeping the boys' lives as normal as possible right now, we realize just how blessed we are. We are rich in friends and family, and our cup runneth over.

I've been praying that God would use our family to shine Christ brighter than ourselves and to give us the platform with which to accomplish that goal. I wonder if this is it. I don't know how, and I don't know why this, but I know that I trust Him, and I've heard His whispers. In the quiet of the wee morning hours, and in the middle of the bustle of the day, I've heard him clearly say "Be still, Child, and trust me." Exodus 14:14 says "The LORD will fight for you, you need only to be still." This alone is enough to rock me to my core, but if it doesn't for you, do you know the context of this verse? The Israelites were fleeing out of Egypt away from Pharaoh and as the Egyptian army was chasing them, they were terrified. They looked to Moses and cried out in fear "Why did you take us here? It would have been better to serve the king as slaves than to die in the desert!" Then God told Moses to part the Red Sea so that His people would see He is Lord. The Israelites were facing an impossibility. They were caught between a huge body of water and an army of angry Egyptians who were ready to slay them and it must have taken huge faith to say "yes, Lord, we will be still and let you fight for us." Can you imagine watching the waves of the sea roll apart and form a wall on either side of you? Can you imagine how awestruck you would be? Can you feel the adrenaline pumping as the fear of being chased collided with the knowledge that you must walk - no, run! - through the walls of the... SEA?!

That's how I feel sometimes. Like God is saying "I know it feels impossible, but be still and let me fight for you, child. I work miracles and am in the business of impossibilities. Trust me."

Ok, Lord. Let us tackle Monday and the rest of this week being still. My brain has Exodus 14:14 on repeat, and I keep thinking about Matthew 6 too... "Do not worry about tomorrow... Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and God will provide all your needs." That's a basic summary of that passage, so don't quote me, but I love the message there. I hope someone else out there can use that this week.

Will post the next Crohn's update when I can...