Yesterday I blogged about things I was thankful for. I didn't list Donny, Olivia, and Boston just by themselves because I know you know I am thankful for them. I listed specific things about each that I am thankful for. My life would not be the same as it is now nor would I be who I am if it weren't for them. I find it interesting that we have had times in our family that we thought perhaps we would not be able to remain "together" yet Jesus had different plans and each time we came through the trial as a stronger family and as weaker individuals who relied more strongly on Jesus. Does that make sense?
I'm thinking of when Olivia was born. All of a sudden, I got a fever and no one could tell me what was wrong. I was told it may be a blood clot on the same morning that it was reported on the Today show that one of their key anchors had passed away during the night from a blood clot. I remember lying in that hospital bed with Donny and our 3 day old Olivia wondering what the next days would bring. Miracles, that's what. Twelve days later, I was better and heading home. Our family intact.
Nearly four years later, we got a call as we were eating dinner, that a biopsy showed I had skin cancer, melanoma, to be exact. It would need to be removed. Soon. Together we waited for results, wondering what would happen within our little family. Again, a miracle. They were able to remove all the cancer and nearly three years later I remain cancer free!
Just months after that, we rushed Boston to the ER and were immediately admitted to the PICU unit with Boston, then 18 months old. Again, no human could tell us what was going on. Seeing our little boy hooked up to oxygen, getting a blood transfusion, and going through multiple times of anesthesia to try to find answers brought us to our knees as we cried out to Jesus to keep our family together. After a near diagnosis of leukemia and several genetic or blood disorders it was finally figured out that Boston suffered from Celiac Disease. A miracle, yes, that's right. I see Celiac as a miracle. If you were one of the ones to be in that hospital room with us and to have seen how sick our little boy was, to hear the doctors tell us that his body was just shutting down, you know what I mean. We are so blessed. What better auto-immune disorder than one that can be controlled with a special diet? Once again, our prayers were answered and we were allowed to remain together.
3 months after Boston's diagnosis Donny had a procedure done to see if he also had Celiac. The answer was yes to Celiac but they also discovered a polyp in his esophagus. More waiting. More wondering. Another miracle.
This Fall brought two more incidents that led us to wonder what was in store for our family of four. Liv was put in the hospital for four days with mysterious mouth blisters that after a week had caused her to lose some serious weight and become dehydrated. Come to find out it was the silly, yet dangerous, H1N1 virus. That she came out fine and the rest of us were unscathed (at least physically!!) was another miracle granted to our family.
Then in November, I got some weird stomach issue that made me quite ill. I tried to ignore it but after 6 weeks ended up hospitalized for 8 days. As we tried to beat the doctors to a diagnosis, we researched of every possible outcome. Scaring ourselves silly, on some nights! However, when a diagnosis of lymphocitic colitis and possible Celiac came back, we breathed a sigh of relief and and gave glory to God for ANOTHER healing in the Loughry Family.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, tonight as I was putting the kids to bed, I asked them to each list a miracle from the Bible. Boston talked about manna and Olivia talked about Jesus turning water into wine. It made me think about hearing people question whether miracles still happen today. Uuhhh...duh!!! Open your eyes!! I don't know why God has chosen to "bless" us with physical trials in our family over the past 7 years especially. However, the part I don't understand even more is why He has chosen to heal us or provide us with ways to deal with the diagnoses. I can only hope that we can use the lives He has granted us to show His glory to those around us.
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