Peace

Samuel has been resting peacefully all day and has shown no signs of infection or a fever, which would indicate that his stomach is dying. The surgeon stopped by a couple of times to check on him. He said he has never seen anything like this in his 20 years of practicing medicine, but we seem to be hearing that a lot, and Samuel has been beating all the odds thrown at him, so we have peace about it and feel that Samuel will recover. They are keeping him off Kristy's milk for at least 5 day to allow the stomach to heal, so he is getting IV nutrition. I realized how amazing Kristy is when she told the surgeon not to worry about Samuel and that he's a fighter and would come through this ok.

We also had a huge blessing today as Samuel had a hearing test and he only has mild to moderate hearing loss. The doctors were concerned that he could be totally deaf. He will have to have hearing aids until he is 6 or 7, and then they can do a surgery to open up his ear canals. This will also affect speech, but for a kid who was given no chance of surviving, we're quite happy with that outcome.

Many people have been asking us how we are getting through this and the answer is simple - we gave this all to God back in July. We realized that we could not handle this on our own and we have put God in control. We're just along for the ride. If God takes him tomorrow, we'll have total peace, we'll be extremely sad, but it was God's plan. Our hopes and prayers are that Samuel will run and play t-ball and graduate college, but we will love him and take care of him all the same no matter how he turns out. This is going to be a huge trial in our lives, but God is bigger than this and we need to view these times as light and momentary troubles. We look forward to seeing what we can learn from this precious gift. Thanks for your prayers.