Friday, January 14, 2011

update from last night's "deep thanks" post

I was undone yesterday reading that Ann Voskamp's newborn niece might have meningitis.  This morning I put the water on for our oatmeal, then read this encouraging report from Ann's Friday post:

May we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your prayers for my niece? While she’s still being treated with antibiotics and is in the critical care unit, the doctors have ruled out meningitis (He hears and answers your humble prayers! Thank you, Lord!) Her oxygen levels are the current concern but we are all so hopeful. Yesterday was encouraging — your prayers, His goodness, give courage. Today, to gather up her sisters, the cousins, from my Mama’s to come for a day at the farm! We’ll just keep making love lists…

Praise God!  Such a relief!


When I was twenty-one weeks pregnant with Peter I was told during a routine ultrasound that he had hydrocephalus and swollen kidneys.  I drove home in a tearful daze, wondering if there was a God at all, for less than a year earlier I had lost a precious son at 21 weeks gestation (from unknown causes).  


Delivering the news, the doctor on duty said to me, "You were brave enough to get pregnant at 35, so now you can use that same strength to deal with this."  (Yikes!  Age 35?  Since when is that ancient?  I wish I could go back and tell that guy about the babies (Mary and Beth) I had at age 40 and 42!)

I was still working as a teacher at the time of this ill-fated ultrasound, though I had switched to a charter school catering to homeschoolers. So many people prayed for us and for our precious Peter!  Three days later we saw a specialist,  who said there was no hydrocephalus at all!  Peter still had the swollen kidneys (hydronephrosis) up until birth, but there was no evidence of it following his birth.

I really believe in the power of prayer!  God doesn't always say yes, but when he does, we need not assume it was just a coincidence.

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