So Grateful....

our dear little boy

was born with a hole in his heart.

apparently it is more common than i knew,

but no mama wants to hear those words.

we were told it would most like close on its own,

but the pediatrician still wanted him seen by

a pediatric cardiologist.

Several weeks ago,

i noticed a little divot in his chest

when he took a breath,

and he seemed to be breathing pretty hard.

As we were leaving on vacation,

i scheduled an appointment to have it looked at.

the boy has not always been a fan of his carseat

and if he had something wrong,

i was not going to let him cry at all in the car

(even if it took us 9 hours to do

what should have been a 5-hour trip.

before the appointment,

i had googled about chest sinking

and thought maybe he had

something called pectus excavatum. 

(note to self:

don't google things that

explains the surgery to repair it

as putting steel rods in you son's chest.)

the ped looked at him and

thought the very same thing i did.  boo.

she also thought he was breathing really heavy

and sent us to the hospital for a chest x-ray.

i needed to collect myself first. 

i called one of the Pastors of our church

and asked if we could bop by for a quick prayer

before we headed to radiology.

what a great family...

i feel so blessed to belong to a wonderful church

that truly cares about the people...

and doubly blessed to consider them friends. 

I was just so impressed how this little meeting went.

Pastors Mark & Deb got out his grandfather's Bible (wow!)

and quoted a hand full of scriptures about God's promises

that put this mama's heart at ease.

Then he called his children in to lay hands on him also.

(Please Lord, let me raise my children to turn out

so wonderful.. Amen.  hee hee) 

We prayed for little John

and I left knowing that God was going to touch him. 

John was promised to us and

I can't imagine our God would send us a faulty promise. 

Off we went for the chest x-ray.

We got the report a few hours later that it was perfect.

Then the Ped called and said he had the flu! 

the flu!

no symptoms... just a happy, smiling, delicious baby.

so that put me at ease

but we still had the follow-up appointment

with pediatric cardiology this morning.

my boy was such a doll...

he even tried to assist in his echo.

(sorry so blurry but it's a phone pic

and he was totally squirmy)

anyway,

Dr. John something or other

gave him a 100% clean bill of health.

the hole has been closed,

his chest is fine.

he said he doesn't think

he has the pectus excavatum,

but even if he did,

the surgery for something so small

would be purely cosmetic and not even necessary.

it would have been very easy to say

that nothing was ever wrong with him

and I worried for nothing. 

but i believe God deserves more credit than that.

how many times do we desperately pray

for our loved ones,

and then when we hear a good report,

think that nothing was ever wrong.

whose to say that God didn't touch his heart

in that living room

before we went for the chest x-ray.

so i sit here,

totally humbled by our great big God

and am so grateful for my four perfect children...

and for all the praying people in their lives. 

<3