Time Out!

Hello Family and Friends,

We titled this post "Time Out" for two reasons 1) Josiah gets time outs about 10 times a day. Yes, he has fully entered the testing two's! And, also 2) because last week we heard from Josiah's doctor at Shriners. He has decided to hold off on doing the surgery for right now and he wants to meet with us, take x-rays of Josiah’s back and examine him again. Our appointment with him will be June 17th in the morning. For now, we are relieved there’s no immediate surgery being scheduled but we still feel the weight of things not being right in Josiah's back yet. He is still at great risk of his back collapsing so Dana keeps close tabs on him and we continue to pray that the Lord would keep him until the time is right to intervene. We have many questions for our doctor and it will be interesting to hear what he’s thinking about Josiah’s situation.

Many of you have been so good to ask how we are doing. First of all, thank you very much for all your concern and prayers. There are certainly days that the reality of what we are facing with Josiah's condition really hits us and we feel overwhelmed with emotion and concern about his future. However, many days we have a peace as we walk through this. Today, in fact, we heard a sermon about God's command to "remember" His works in our lives. So, this evening we spent some time at dinner recounting the ways the Lord has brought answers to prayer in each season of our life. Even Dara chimed in, remembering a time when God healed a burn she got on her finger. The sermon stated that our own testimonies are meant to serve as an encouragement and witness to how God has acted in the past, so we can take courage when we face the giants in our future.

One thing that I call to mind often is that for two and a half years I prayed and asked the Lord for a son. Little did we know then that Dana had a medical condition that was preventing us from getting pregnant. God heard my prayer and after two and a half years God gave us Josiah. One night, I was looking up the meanings of some of the names we were considering for our little guy. This is what I discovered:

Josiah means "God has supported"
Seth means "God has appointed"

When I put those names together, I remember feeling inspired. The two names together captured, in a sense, what I felt like God had done for us. God supported Dana's pregnancy so that Josiah was delivered safely into our arms, and in response to my prayers, God had appointed Josiah's life and had sent him to us for this time. Looking at Josiah's name now, I find new depth of meaning and encouragement as we face these issues in his back. God is supporting our precious boy and He appointed that Josiah should live and be entrusted to our care. These encouragements give us hope in the midst of this trial, remind us of The Lord's faithfulness to us in the past and give us confidence that we will see His hand of faithfulness in our circumstances yet again.

Thank you for all your prayers for Josiah, Dana, Dara and myself and Josiah's doctors. Your faithful support and encouragement has been a blessing to us. We will post again following our appointment on the 17th.