Blog Category: Uncategorized

A Breath of Fresh Air

By admin,

More and more Ian is using his voice. Mostly, he complains with it. When he’s moved around, when they’re getting him dressed, when he’s uncomfortable…he groans. The speech therapist heard him make a different kind of noise when she was with him. She said it was as if he was talking to her, but there were no words. Others have heard him do that, too. Josh Brown even thought he was laughing. “I still think about my friend in the hospital everyday,” he said, “and continue to pray for him. With every visit, though, I can see Ian’s steady progress and the true evidence that God is continually with Ian.”

He also had the opportunity to go outside a couple times in the last couple days. The breath of fresh air, I’m sure, is good for him.

Please pray…thanks.

– Steve

  Filed under: Uncategorized
  Comments: None

Pray that he would stay

By admin,

Ian is moving whenever he’s “awake.” It seems every time I see him he’s moving more and more. The stimulation that he would get in a nursing would not ultimately help him to wake up, though. I’m convinced more and more that Ian is “in there,” but he needs the help of others. He needs the help of a facility like LifeCare. He would have to leave on Friday with only a three day stay (see Ben’s post below). Please pray that the insurance company would approve a longer stay.

Thank you…

Steve Murphy

  Filed under: Uncategorized
  Comments: None

Ian breathing easier

By admin,

Ian is breathing a bit easier according to his respiratory therapist. They’re in the process of weaning him off of the ventilator, and he’s taking it well. They currently have him on the minimum level of treatment the ventilator can provide him. They expect him to be off of it completely by tomorrow. That would be great if he could get off of it completely. It would be great for us, too, if he could get completely off the ventilator, since we could put him into a nursing home in Indiana. There are no nursing homes near us who will take patients like Ian on a ventilator.

Please pray that he would get off the ventilator completely. Please continue to pray, most of all, that he would wake up. Remember to talk to him or read to him if you go to visit him. He needs the constant stimulation. Thank you for your kindness to us….

Steve Murphy

  Filed under: Uncategorized
  Comments: None

dance with me

By admin,

Thank you for healing me;
I was dying beneath my shame
But You brought me to life again, and I will sing:
Thank you for freeing me
I was dead to the truth of You,
But my healing was in Your wounds, and now I sing:
Thank you for healing me.

Though outwardly I may waste away,
On the inside I´ll be more alive every day.
As I walk through times of pain and grief
There´s a deeper truth inside of me…
You have placed Your life inside of me.


both ian and i have been feeling unwell over the past few days/weeks. god has been teaching us much but at times have grown weary and discouraged. tonight was a night that i would be alone with ian, without his brother here working and helping with transfers and the like. i didn’t work all day, not feeling well enough, and i found myself feeling anxious about being alone to care for ian – evenings that i typically look forward to with much anticipation. 

but god has met us, and met this very tiny request of meeting our needs just on this night, which is a speck of our lifetime. ian has made me laugh, made our roommate jen laugh, forgotten her name which made us laugh really hard, and he has cared for me. we took a walk. we watched a movie. and just after i had hung up the phone, he told me he wanted to dance with me. and on pandora was a song that i had been searching for all week, and it was a perfect moment. a perfect moment because ian was showing god to me, loving me, asking me to dance with him, caring for me. and we were dancing to words of healing, and mercy, and life. this is my husband who, two years ago, could not sit up in bed by himself. his dad, and i, and his caregiver had to hold him for strength. and now, even though his arms and legs are tired, he’s pursuing a dance with his wife. 

i am so grateful to the lord for my husband, and for these moments of sweetness and fellowship with the lord. i’m reminded each day that we are most clearly met when we are most weak.

thank you, always
i&l
…bless the lord, oh my soul…

  Filed under: Uncategorized
  Comments: None

he loves simply

By admin,

she packed us a picnic of lemon water and milk in the glass bottles that were his birthday gift. it was a coupon to redeem for a picnic, meal of our choice, date and time of our choice. and so being date night, we stopped at our mother in law’s house for our basket filled with chicken salad sandwiches, brownies and milk – at Ian’s request.

the sky was teasing us with passing dark clouds and so we opted for the park with a nearby pavilion. we took just one out of the basket at a time, just in case we had to pack up quickly.

after an hour of watching the clouds, and eating and talking, we decided to risk it and settled on a blanket under a strong and sprawling tree.

i wanted to capture the moment and so i brushed past ian laying on the blanket, looking back at the tree as i walked.

“you look beautiful in that skirt.”

after a quiet thank you i snapped a picture, a smile behind the hands holding the phone. i walked back over to the blanket, laying next to him, smiling yet.

“i can’t believe i’m so blessed to have such a beautiful wife.”

noticing i was cold, he pulled the blanket up over my shoulder, simply loving me.

i turned onto my back, looking up at the huge tree, and smiled. i smiled because God knew exactly what my heart needed that night. and he softened my heart as he softened ian’s, and gave us a sweet and beautiful moment of feeling so deeply the joy of being loved, by each other and by our Father.

in a nagging week that had “brain injury” running through my thoughts too many times, there was peace and a moment of rest. and tonight, after work and spending time with our little man paladin, i told ian i was tired.

“you just need to sit down and rest for awhile.”

and so we will rest, as the white curtains on our patio shift in the breeze and the little birds enjoy the new food in their feeders. there’s a tea pot on the stove waiting for water and a husband ready to just sit with his wifey.

thank you, always
i&l

  Filed under: Uncategorized
  Comments: None

Vacation

By admin,

Sunday marked the beginning of the Murphy’s two week vacation in Virginia. Life was much different this time last year.

Seeming to miss Steve more each day.

  Filed under: Uncategorized
  Comments: None

see them

By admin,

Desiring God has released a new e book on disability. It is geared toward pastors, but has affected my heart just a few pages in. Click on our right link to DG to download.

An excerpt, that we all need, because my Ian, and so many other beautiful, disabled people are deeply loved by God and need to be hemmed in by others:

“And I would just plead in passing—children, young people, and adults—see people with disabilities. And I don’t mean see them like the priest and the Levite on the Jericho Road, passing by on the other side. This is our natural reflex—see and avoid. But we are not natural people. We are followers of Jesus. We have the Spirit of Jesus in our hearts. We have been seen and touched in all our brokenness by an attentive, merciful Savior.

If you want to be one of the most remarkable kinds of human beings on the planet—a Jesus kind—see people with disabilities. See them. And move toward them. God will show you what to say.”

  Filed under: Uncategorized
  Comments: None

By admin,

A message from Ian as we talked about god’s ability, but not guarantee, to heal him:

“my affliction has kept me closer to god because im always asking for his help. he’s lord and i’m aware of it.”
i have tons to learn from my husband.

  Filed under: Uncategorized
  Comments: None

No fear in love

By admin,

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 1 John 4:18

This is a challenging passage to me. If there’s no fear in love and I’m afraid of what could happen in the future, then something is deficient in my love for God or my understanding and enjoyment of God’s love for me. The primary focus of the passage is on wrongly being afraid of God’s punishment when Christ has already dealt with what we deserve in dying for us on the cross. But, I think there’s a broader application. According to Scripture, God rules over every circumstance in our lives for good, and if we’re afraid of the future, we either don’t understand the depths of God’s love for us or we’re not embracing and enjoying it in faith. Lord, I pray that I could “have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that [I could] be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:18-19).

I wish there were something that would cast out grief.

Ian continues to make very tiny steps of progress. Recently, Mary was feeding him pizza all chopped up finely with some cheesecake flavored pudding for dessert. He didn’t eat much, but it was more than he had eaten in one sitting prior to that.

Thank you for your prayers.

Steve

  Filed under: Uncategorized
  Comments: None