“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:13)

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I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. Ps 57:2

I must confess. I got stuck on this passage when I read it. I struggle not to talk back to God like the faithless one of Romans 5:20 and say (about my own situation and Ian’s), “Why have you made me like this?” He fulfills his purpose for me, but I don’t like his purpose. I have to remind myself that his purposes behind our circumstances are good somehow. I also have to remind myself again and again that I deserve hell, but I’ve received mercy. The busy-ness of life has a way of drowning out the voice of mercy that should be loud and unavoidable. We’ve received circumstances from his hand that, though extremely difficult, are nonetheless something short of the unimaginable. So, I’ll “cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his [good] purpose for me.”

Ian had a busy day today. Our whole family and Larissa went Christmas shopping in Greensburg. That tired him out, but after he got a nap we got him up to go to a caregroup Christmas party. He was VERY tired, but it’s good for him to be with family and friends.

Thank you for your prayers.

Steve

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If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Ps 50:12

I regularly have to remind myself of truths like this. The Lord owns everything: food, clothing, me, you, Ian, health…everything. It’s humbling on the one hand; I don’t own or control anything really. God does. I’m completely dependent on Him even for food. But, that’s comforting, too. The One who is good holds all things in the palm of His hand. It doesn’t seem that way with Ian in the state he’s in, but I know it’s true. Scripture declares it. My experience up to now confirms it. Nothing has changed.

Ian has been eating more by mouth lately. Mary feeds him a whole variety of things from pudding to Ramen noodles. It used to be she could only give him things the consistency of honey but no more. It’s awkward for him, but he tastes much of what we have for dinner. It’s certainly not a full meal at each sitting, but it’s more than what it used to be. He’s making very, very slow progress.

Thank you for praying.

Steve

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As a follow-up to my last post about prayer:

Ian and I have been reading through the Psalms together and using a James Montgomery Boice commentary. Psalm 5 starts with the following:

Give ear to my words, O LORD;
consider my groaning.
Give attention to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God,
for to you do I pray.

Boice says this stanza teaches us the spirit in which we should pray. With urgency, persistency and an expectant spirit. “George Mueller, the founder of the great faith orphanages in England in the nineteenth century, saw great answers to prayer even though some of the answers were delayed. When he was quite young he began to pray for two of his friends. He prayed for them every day for more than sixty years. One was converted just before Mueller’s death at what was probably the last preaching service Mueller held. The other was converted within a year of Mueller’s passing. Clearly we ought always to pray and not give up.”

Again, we do not know the Lord’s will. But we do know that we are to pray.

Thank you, always.

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“Do not leave the throne of grace until all your wants have been spread before the Lord and until by faith you are confident that they will all be supplied.”

Spurgeon

Ask and it will be given to you. That’s what the Bible says to do. But to pray in accordance to God’s word. To pray for that which is good. Praying for patience. Praying for provision. Praying for comfort. Praying for healing. Healing is a good thing that God does for us in His mercy. Jesus didn’t have to heal people while he was on earth, but he did.

Praying for this healing doesn’t mean God has to give it to us. If healing was what Ian was supposed to receive, God would’ve done it. But for whatever reasons, God has chosen to withold that from us- either temporarily or “permanently.” Maybe tomorrow he’ll be healed, maybe in ten years he’ll be the same that he is now.

Still, it is good to pray. So thank you to all who have done that alongside us for one year, two months, and six days. What a comfort to know that even since the first day at the hospital, when we are too weak to pray, someone else is pleading on Ian’s behalf.

Larissa

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Let the righteous one rejoice in the LORD
and take refuge in him!
Let all the upright in heart exult!
Psalm 64

Ian is my hero. He is persevering through a trial that none of us can understand or imagine. The Holy Spirit is at work in him, and it is evident in the fact that Ian continues to fight to come back to us. He has not given up. He has not resigned himself to weariness or defeat. I don’t know what’s going on in his heart, but I do see him every day working hard at therapy, working hard to do all of the things that we ask him to do.

That God can minister to him now is a daily reminder of how infinite God is. He is not limited by anything. God is still at work in Ian, making him more like Christ. Inside there somewhere, Ian is still the same man of God that he was last November- but an even better version.

God is also using Ian as an example of how much all of us are at God’s mercy, but also at His protection. Ian has no say in his daily routine, he can’t get up and leave a situation he isn’t enjoying, he doesn’t have control over anything that he does. He has no defense. Yet God is his defender and his refuge. We are all this much at God’s mercy and this much in need of His refuge- it’s just more obvious with Ian. I’m trying to talk this to myself because everything in me desperately wants to see Ian taking care of himself and back in control of his own life….

I’m clinging to the promises that God is Ian’s refuge

Thank you for praying

“I shall not fear any harm
With your powerful arms around me”

Larissa

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Ian just had speech therapy at the hospital today and I didn’t really hear a report on how it went. This afternoon, I spent some time with him working on writing on a dry-erase board. At first he didn’t want anything to do with it, but then he finally started holding the marker. He held it for awhile and for probably 20 minutes we worked on him touching the marker to the board and just making some scribbles. It was so fun to see him holding the marker (he’s going to be ambidextrous now because he’s using his left hand- by the way I have no idea how to spell “ambidextrous”) and he really did an awesome job at moving the marker around on the board. He attempted to draw a circle after I showed him how. I was holding his hand that held the pen and was writing some words so he could become familiar with the movement of writing. I’ve been thinking lately how wonderful it would be if he could write to us. We know he can read, so even though it may be a lofty goal, I want him to write too.

Thank you always for praying. As we’ve been saying for awhile, he’s in there. We just have to help him learn how to get out.

Larisa

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Ian seemed to have a good day today. He worked hard for his therapists at the hospital. They are having him work on eating on his own and gaining more control and movement in his right arm. As of now, he doesn’t do much with that arm. It’s like his brain isn’t communicating to him that he has that arm. So they want to try to re-establish those connections from his brain to his arm.

Steve said that he did really well sitting up tonight. It’s amazing how well he does at sitting for us. I can’t wait until the day that he can stand.

I also can’t wait for the day that he can talk to us. I want to know what his life has been like for the past year. Please pray for his communication. Only God can show him how to talk again- pray that He would reveal that to Ian. I’m dying to know his thoughts on his life, God, suffering, everything.

Thanks you for praying

Laris

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Leviticus is not one of those books I read often, but I’ve been listening to it on my iPod (I bought the whole Bible on CD once and transferred it to my iPod). I don’t think I would have enjoyed being a priest if that had been my calling. One sin required an individual to submit an animal to a priest for slaughter. The process a priest was required to go through to sacrifice the animal properly appears to be a gruesome, exhausting and time-consuming one; at the end of it there was blood everywhere and the smell of burning flesh in the air. Just when the priest was finished with that long process, he would likely have turned around to find someone else standing in line with another animal to sacrifice. Each sacrifice of an animal represented one sin – only ONE sin! By the time the priest was done with my sacrifice for sin, I would have to have a few more sacrifices waiting for him!

But, Christ died for my sins! He died for ALL of them. I don’t have wait in line to apply his sacrifice to my new sins. In his death, he forgave all my sin. “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!” And, because of his death for me, God also will show me favor throughout my life. “The Lord has promised good to me…”

These promises apply to Ian, too. Ian’s sin is forgiven, and the Lord has promised to do good to him. With my finite mind, I can’t comprehend how that could be so given his current condition, but I trust God to fulfill his promise somehow.

Ian had an eventful Thanksgiving with his cousins visiting. He’s back into a routine this week of visiting therapists. It had been almost two weeks since we sat him up to practice “trunk control,” but we got him up a couple nights ago. It took him a little while to remember what it was like, but it came back to him. He was sitting on his own. Larissa has been taking him out frequently to church meetings and other outings which he seems to enjoy. We continue to try various therapies to help him.

Thank you for faithfully praying.

Steve

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Driving back from my sister’s house yesterday, I realized how unattractive this time of year is. All of the leaves have fallen and all that’s left are the bare, brown outlines of the trees. The grass is only green in small patches- the rest is brown or yellow. Every year I look forward to fall, and then that quickly the leaves are gone. It seems like just a few days before it was so beautiful out but it suddenly turned ugly.

The good thing though is that soon it will snow. The bare outlines will be covered with snow and even though I hate the cold, I love the look of fresh snow. And it’s pretty much a guarantee that we’ll have snow living in western Pennsylvania, so we can look forward to when it’s beautiful again.

It’s the same with our lives too. Life seemed to be going along so beautifully. On September 29, I spent the evening with Ian’s family and his grandparents. On Sept. 30 our lives moved into the hospital. There wasn’t any warning, and now we’re living a life that isn’t very pretty. What we’re expericing isn’t attractive and I can’t wait for it to be over. But, this isn’t all that there is. God has many promises still coming to us. One day, our lives will seem beautiful again. One day, this season of sadness will be over.

“I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

Still waiting for more of God’s promises…..

Thank you, always, for praying

Larissa

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