O Thou Son of David, have mercy...

Terry has gone home to be with the other children and to hopefully get a good rest in his own bed. In the twelve day stay he has only been home once. I am so grateful for his committment to the Lord, his family and his precious son, Joel. Terry is laying down his life for him through his energy and his constant prayer. This type of strength only comes from the Lord .Mere words cannot begin to expess our deep gratefulness to so many, may the Lord recompense the reward!!

Joel has been stable through out the day except for about an hour after one suctioning in which his heart rate jumped up to 143 and his blood pressure was 112\76. We had to tell him to stop being rowdy. The Lord once again allowed all to level out. Both of his eyes are very puffy. Pray that the Lord would reduce the swelling and protect them.

Please pray that all will work out to get Joel home soon. That the Lord would go before us !

This afternoon I read to Joel the book of Phillipians and now we are reading the book of Luke. I told Joel to listen carefully to the many miracles that Jesus did when he walked on this earth."O Thou Son of David, have mercy upon our little Joel."

During all the hospital stays and different procedures Joel would go through, he would always say "I'm all done?".This afternoon I heard Hosanna and Jeremiah discussing what Joel might say when Joel wakes up. They said he might say"I'm all done?". The other day I asked his twin brother Josiah what Joel was doing at the hospital and he said ,"he's sleeping". May the Lord give grace to these tender hearts.

The Lord has been giving such powerful scriptures to our hearts. Ones that have been very encouraging to me have been in the book of Luke. The story of the widow, Jesus raising Jarius's daughter, the sparrows and the number of hairs on our head and the power of importune prayer.

Terry has taught our family that God is sovereign, that he rules in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of man,that God works all things after the counsel of his will, that what ere befalls us is by his appointment, for our good, and for his glory.We know God is in control of every detail of our circumstances, that nothing is happening outside of his will, so yes there is great comfort in these bedrock truths, and he will give grace to all that he has for us. We must stay upon Jehovah!

I must say that there are certainly moments of intense heartache, like this morning when Josiah wants to wear a cowboy shirt that Joel has worn so much because it was easy to put on, going into our boys room and seeing Joel's bed and his stuffed monkey, arranging his special gifts on his shelf by his bed, and one of the hardest today was giving Josiah discipline. He and Joel have such different personalities. Joel would want you to hold and snuggle with him and Josiah tends to want to be alone, I was wanting to hold Josiah and recieve from him the comfort of feeling what it would be like to hold Joel again and Josiah really didn't want to so that sent me into a flood of tears. O Lord give us you comfort as these precious memories are continually before us.

We are so blessed by all the encouraging words through e-mail. Thank you for your support and prayer. May the Lord hear our desire and grant them according to his will. If you would like to view a clip of the Channel 4 news here in OKC, you can go to Kfor.com and do a search for Joel's story. They did a great job and we are thankful.May the Lord grant sweet rest and peace to us all this evening. I thank my God upon the rememberence of you!!