Day 23 - July 8 - Confident?

OK. this morning I was reading Hebrews. Someone had reminded me of Hebrews 11:1 - "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.". Like any good Bible college graduate, I decided that I needed to see the context that was written in. We all now what's after that verse - a description of all the mighty people of faith. I thought I'd look to see what was before it - chapters and verses weren't inserted into the texts until the Middle Ages, remember? So I cranked up Hebrews 10:32 - 11:1, and you really need to go read it. I was reminded to not throw away my confidence. Since I woke up in a pretty good condition, I thought "OK, I won't" and went on my way.

Fast forward to late morning, when I'm in Connor's room while they prepare to turn him back over again. The doctors walk in (oh, so that's what a doctor looks like!) and we started discussing Connor's case. First, they've decided to take him out of the bed! So sometime today they're going to move him back to the Roto-rest and out of the Roto-prone. Good news!

Then they started talking about how he had "arrested" last night. Say what? Apparently, every time they work with his trach tube, his heart slows almost to a standstill. It's not really a cardiac arrest, but rather a significant slowing of the heartbeat. They say this is common in spine injury victims, but the doctors were wagging their beards and grumbling about how this shouldn't be happening at this stage, as it usually clears up after two weeks or so. The nurse said "I'm told this can continue as long as six weeks or more", to which the doctors harrumphed and decided that Cardiology needed to see him to determine the need for a pacemaker. So there's a prayer request for you - that there would be no need for a pacemaker, but that his heart would be strong, beat effectively, and keep his blood pressure at the appropriate levels to sustain all of his organs.

Then the doctors started discussing Connor's level of feeling. Apparently there is nothing below the point where Connor's neck joins his trunk. They gave me that "this is so tragic" look and told me they were doing all they could for him. I assured them that I had confidence in their abilities, telling them that it wasn't in their hands anyway. They agreed, and I told him that this was OK because I was talking to the boss.

Now, I'm as susceptible to despair as anyone else, maybe more than some. This news caused me to wrestle with it some more. That's when a friend of the family showed up. We started discussing the situation, and somehow we got talking about faith and hope. You know what he said? He said "Faith is confidence in what we can't see, and hope is confident expectation. So don't lose confidence in God". I thought "Confidence? I've read something about confidence recently", so I grabbed the Bible and we began discussing how God works to encourage us through each other and through His word.

So that's where we are right now. We are praying confidently that God will continue His healing work in Connor. You need to be confident in this too. The widow woman didn't give up just because the judge said 'no', she just kept coming back and asking for justice. The guy in the parable didn't stop knocking on the door even though his neighbor wasn't getting out of bed - he kept making a spectacle of himself until the neighbor got out of bed and gave him the bread he was asking for. We confidently ask God for the bread we desire - full, complete healing of the boy, with movement, feeling, and control of all his body. We know our God can do this - we continue to ask that He will.