Miracle.

I can say fairly confidently that God does not answer our prayers as we expect or in the time frame we set upon our request.

And I am learning to be ok with this.

As many of you might have known, we had another ultrasound this past Tuesday. The weeks previous I had been praying for a complete healing of my sons heart, and walking into that ultrasound room, where seven weeks ago we had learned of our sons condition.... I found myself nervously hopeful that we would see a whole and complete heart.

We have had so many people praying...so many hearts crying out to God for help and for healing. How could he not answer? Surely he could hear the pounding on his door and on the heart of God himself....surely.

Alas, we saw our wiggley little man on the screen. The doctors scanned his heart for a good 45 minutes...to which we thought for sure there had been some change! It looked different. I felt different. Surely Lord, surely you have answered. 10 minutes after that, we are in a conference room. Where we had been weeping seven weeks ago, we were now waiting in expectation. Our cardiologist came into the room and explained to us that unfortunately there had been no change in his heart. However, with the growth of Rowan, they found that he doesn't have Hypoplastic Left Heart, rather he just has a single chamber heart. We hoped anxiously that this meant something redemptive for Rowan, but alas it would be the same outcome and the same procedures...just different anatomy.

I wanted to be disappointed, and cry and be sad... but I had learned a lesson quite clearly at church on Sunday that didn't allow me to feel sorry for myself or our situation.

Jeff Bucknam, lead pastor of Northview Community Church in Abbotsford, spoke on Sunday about how easily the disciples forgot that God provides. The story in Mark, of the feeding of the 5000, tells of Gods goodness and capabilities of doing miracles and providing for his people. A few chapters later, there is another crowd. The disciples question God and how they will feed the multitudes with no bread or fish. God asks them (perhaps not so bluntly), if they have forgotten the miracle that he did only a short time ago. He already fed thousands and was prepared to do it again. The very men who walked along side of Jesus and saw his many miracles...even they forgot!

It was a humbling experience for here is what I heard the Lord saying to me....

"Lori. My dear Lori. Have you forgotten the prayers I have already answered for you? Do you remember at week 5 of your pregnancy when you found out you would be a mother, when you were so terrified and cried to me in fear... to make you capable to be a parent and to help you learn the love of a mothers heart. Did I not teach you this and calm your fears. Am I not walking with you week by week as I show you true love and the love of a parent?

What about week 13 when you were bleeding and cramping. When you had to go to emergency because of what you were experiencing. Do you remember how you asked me to keep alive what was inside of you...to keep your babe whole and alive inside of you? Did I not answer that? Can you not feel his tiny life move inside of you as you pray to me?

Oh child. What about the thousands of times you asked me to heal your broken heart, to provide financially when you thought there would be no way, to bring you to a place of love and acceptance. Did I not answer you then? Did I not hear your heart and answer your request in ways you could not comprehend or fathom.

Be reminded oh doubting Thomas, that I have you under my wing. That you ask for miracles, when all along...I sustain your very breath. I make your very own heart beat and blood pump. That when you were in your mothers womb, I was HE who created you to be here and now in this place with me. You are in fact the miracle. Your life sustained is in fact the miracle. Let alone the small things you ask of me...I have done greater things, like keep you alive and well. Like make the tiny babe inside of you be sustained and grow...like answer your prayers for things great and small. Do not forget that I am HE, who sustains and provides. "

I am not wise enough to know all of what this truly means for my life or for the life of our son, but how can I doubt the path laid for us when it is HE... who keeps us on that very path. I am overwhelmed at the prospect that God cares enough to sustain and provide for me and for the life of my son...I can only be thankful. I can only be humbled.

I can only trust.

As always, with love.. Lori, Jeremy & Rowan