July 28, 2010

Hello friends,
     Here I am again apologizing taking  so long in between blogs, oh well.  Micah is doing well, though he has been having some difficulty going to sleep this last week or so.  We resorted, on a few days, to giving him some of his leftover sleep meds.  We can only handle so many days of staying up til 2 or 3 in the morning!!  I took him to see hi TN Dr. on the 19th to get his stitches out and get his meds bumped up a bit more.  We are seeing some progress, but mostly on the left side.  He has a lot more control over his leg and arm and is quicker to respond with them.  The right side is still not moving much, but on the whole he is more relaxed on a regular basis.  The Dr. programmed his pump to increase its dose tomorrow so maybe we will see some change on the right side too.  My birthday was a few days ago and on that day Micah turned his head from left to right several times and also pulled his head up several times!  That was a great birthday present, but I haven't seen him do it since then.  We just keep praying.
     
     I have felt lately that I need to share more about how Thomas & I are doing, but haven't wanted to.  It's not that I don't want to be open, but more that I don't want it to seem like a pity party on line.  Trust me, we have plenty of those and they're usually not very pretty!  At the moment, we are doing well, but it usually doesn't take much to reduce us to tears.  We seem to take turns on the "doing badly" times, God is good.  A week or two ago I was having a really hard time.  I was crying every day and bedtime was difficult too.  I know that all we can do is depend on God and I do depend on Him greatly, but I had gotten to a place where I didn't want to spend time in His word.  The reason for this was because every time I did God would give me something that brought me hope, then progress for Micah is so slow that it was disappointing.  I'm thankful for every little thing he does and try to cheer him on, but when your hope is built up over and over and the answers you're looking for are not seen it is painful.  That is one sermon I have never heard about hope, the painful part of it.  What else can I do though?  I can't not believe, I know all too well how much God loves me and how much He loves Micah and wants the best for him.  It is a struggle to hold on to hope, to keep believing in what God has said again and again when you don't see the answer.  The easy thing to do is to just settle for what the world has to offer and let go of that hope, to let go of that pain. 
     A rose bud is a beautiful thing, but when the flower opens and lets the fragrance out it is so much more beautiful.  You do not get the full fragrance of the flower unless it opens.  If a rose had the choice of whether or not to open, it may choose to stay shut.  It could choose to stay a bud, but has to open to reach the fullness of its beauty.  In doing so it has to bear the sun, wind, rain and pests that go along with it.  
     This is how I see our walk with Christ.  We have to open ourselves up, even though it may bring us pain, so that we can be that fragrance of Christ that draws others to Him.  We've come too far with Him to not trust Him with everything.  Though at times we feel that we cannot go on we must trust that He knows our frames, our weaknesses, everything about us and He knows what we can bear.  It is much more than we think possible if we keep our hearts and minds stayed on Him.  I hope that this is an encouragement to those of you who are also struggling. 

Much love to you all and blessings from the Father,

Tina