Each day Ian comes home with a list of things that he has said with his voice in therapy. Last night he was using his voice while we were out to dinner to tell me and the waiter what kind of beer he wanted. Ian has said several times that he’s really close to being back to full speech.
Ian is a picture of Christ to me in his obedient response to what the Father has given him. And he is obviously fighting to control temptations to untruth- if he weren’t, his response to therapy, Bible reading, going places, would be much different. Thank you, Ian, for your faithful example:)
Ian gave me the best birthday gift yesterday. We were sitting in the van after therapy just talking, and he let out a real, true Ian laugh. It sounded just like it used to. He looked happiest that I’ve seen him in the past two and a half years.
All experiences of suffering in the path of Christian obedience, whether from persecution or sickness or accident, have this in common: They all threaten our faith in the goodness of God and tempt us to leave the path of obedience. Therefore, every triumph of faith and all peseverence in obedience are testimonies to the goodness of God and the preciousness of Christ- whether the enemy is sickness, Satan, sin or sabotage.
May I reach heaven’s joys O bright heaven’s Son Heart of my own heart whatever befall Still be my vision, O ruler of all
I’ve been reminded several times this week of the never-changing confidence that we should have in our salvation. Ian will reach heaven’s joys because of Christ’s substitionary death on the cross. His life is not easy, a normal day really isn’t that fun, and he has much fewer comforts than he did three years ago. But he has Christ. And even if that’s all that he has, we have to be content, because all that Ian has in Christ is all that he needs.
I was reviewing some of the posts from the last few weeks, and I noticed how we haven’t necessarily given a full picture of how hard Ian works. Wednesday was a particularly notable day, though it’s representative.
On Wednesday, he had a therapy session at 11am – his daily session – where the therapist said he worked really hard just as he has been for some time. Early in the afternoon he had a doctor’s appointment that required him to wait in his chair for some time, and a lengthy period of time in his chair isn’t comfortable for him. Ian greeted the doctor with purposeful eye contact, though, and responsiveness to the doctor’s inquiries that showed he was really trying; that wouldn’t have been the scenario in many previous sessions with the doctor. Following that he had another lengthy therapy session in a pool, and once again the therapist raved about how hard he worked, just as he has been doing over the past few months.
These are all newer reports. Six to nine months ago the reports wouldn’t have been so glowing. I’m proud of him!
How hard it must be, then – as hard as he’s working – to not be able to do what he so wants to do: to talk! Give him grace, Lord!
Ian, Larissa and I revisited the great, classic series “Unmasking the Deceitful Heart” done by our pastor, Mark. Afterwards, we talked about what stood out to us from the message. Ian wanted to say something and because it’s so difficult for him to talk and get his voice out we tried to guess what he was saying.
It took us a couple minutes to find out he was saying, “I have had…” but by the time we got these words he forgot the rest of his sentence. This is a continuing pattern that Ian says his frustrating for him. So if you could pray that his short-term memory would strengthen and that he wouldn’t be discouraged but trust God. Just like God says through Isaiah…
“‘You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.'”
…we hope that Ian, especially, would be the one that this verse is describing. I have no idea what it is like to be going through what Ian is going through. No matter what we go through we need to remember to look more at Christ than at ourselves – ten looks to Christ for every one look at ourself.
Please keep praying that his voice would come out and that we would understand him better and quicker. And better yet that his singing voice would be heard.
Ian is still trying so hard to talk to us. Specific prayer that he wanted me to share- he needs to get the timing down of his breathing and getting his voice out. He has all the elements that he needs to be able to talk- he just needs the wisdom and knowledge to put it all togther. Please pray that he would gain the coordination of his breathing to make his voice work.
Recently, a reporter from Texas who had been following Ian’s progress on our blog, interviewed Larissa to do an article for the Kerrville (TX) Daily Times in the Faith section of the paper. Here’s the link to the article and to the sidebar included in the article:
For awhile now, Steve has been trying to think of a post to describe how much we see Ian’s personality. I think this will sum it up quite perfectly. I don’t know if you can see since it’s pretty dark, but he’s mouthing all of the words.
