UPDATE (2/10/13)
Last night we didn’t leave the hospital until nearly midnight. Beckett was doing ok, but he seemed to be breathing fairly quickly. I decided to ask the nurse about it, and she decided to have the doctor look at it. They didagree that it was certainly too fast, but that they will monitor it. As a result, they ordered another X-Ray for the morning to see if he was accumulating any additional fluid around his lungs.
The Good: The pleural affusion (the extra fluid in his chest) has decreased.
The Bad: He has a little bit of fluid on his lungs.
They are going to increase his Lasix (which is a diuretic and pulls of the fluid). This isn’t really a step backwards or anything, but rather an update of his progress.
As mentioned before, Leah is on maternity leave. Though it is unfortunately unpaid, we have received word that they have extended her leave. We aren’t exactly sure for how much longer, nor do we want to take advantage of their grace. Moreover, our health insurance deductible is paid through her paycheck. So we are working through those details….but we’d like to report this as a praise overall. Though there are some financial hiccups in there, Leah is blessed to work for great and understanding employers.
Lastly, I wanted to take a moment and flesh out my theology on prayer. I mentioned in an earlier post that this, among many other things, was something I couldn’t shake from my mind. How then should we pray? Obviously the Bible speaks pretty clearly on prayer, especially with Jesus instructing us how exactly to do it in Matthew 6. How does this translate to my life. Here is what I’ve come up with. Though I strongly believe I have not pioneered some new way of praying, I also haven’t stolen this from anyone other than what I see in scripture and how best I know how to practically apply it to my life.
Through this journey my prayer life, along with many of yours, has grown (one of many blessings from all this). Questions arise like:
Why do we pray?
or
Why do I ask for others to pray?
I don’t believe that The Lord waits until he receives a particular number of people prayer before he’ll answer in our favor. It’s not like we need 750 people praying for Beckett for him to be healed, and if we only hit 749, God won’t heal our son. So again, I asked…how does it work? That’s a question I don’t want to attempt to answer in this post. But I will explain HOW I pray (for those of you still reading this post).
I don’t believe it is ‘wrong’ to request and ask the desires of our heart. However, I’m learning how finite I am, and how great He is! Example in scripture of The Lord working out amazing plans through difficult circumstances:
1) Joseph. Sold into slavery. Imprisoned. Yet became Second in command next to Pharaoh.
2) I’ve referenced Job before and
3) Abraham with his son Isaac.
God has already used Beckett in ways that we could never have imagined, yet in my weakness I feel as if I could somehow have had a say in all this before it happened over a month ago, (even knowing what I know now) I would still decline to go through all this agonizing pain once again. So I slowly begin to learn to pray to align my desires to the Lord’s will rather than ask for the Lord’s will to align with my desires. With that being said, I’ll try to wrap up now.
1) I pray for the desires of my heart (‘Please continue to heal my son, God’), but as an act of transparency, sincerity and honesty of my feelings and desires.
2) Next I pray for the Lord’s will to be done (Matthew 6:10) as an act of trust and respect to my Lord.
3) Lastly, I ask for The Lord to work in my heart for peace of whatever the outcome may be….his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2). This is clearly the most challenging prayer, but evokes sanctification and a necessary step in my prayer life.
I hope that helps or was of some value to you. This mindset has really helped me pray what I believe is a pleasing, sincerely and effective prayer.
Love you all (and I mean that, even if we’ve never met). Thank you for praying for my son. We’ve come so far, and I believe the Lord has great plans for my son’s life.
Oh, and if you get the chance, check out Beckett’s blog to find ways to get involved. The Benefit Concert will be awesome, and I’m so thankful to everyone who has helped make this happen. We are forever grateful to you all!
https://heartofbeckett.com/
Last night we didn’t leave the hospital until nearly midnight. Beckett was doing ok, but he seemed to be breathing fairly quickly. I decided to ask the nurse about it, and she decided to have the doctor look at it. They didagree that it was certainly too fast, but that they will monitor it. As a result, they ordered another X-Ray for the morning to see if he was accumulating any additional fluid around his lungs.
The Good: The pleural affusion (the extra fluid in his chest) has decreased.
The Bad: He has a little bit of fluid on his lungs.
They are going to increase his Lasix (which is a diuretic and pulls of the fluid). This isn’t really a step backwards or anything, but rather an update of his progress.
As mentioned before, Leah is on maternity leave. Though it is unfortunately unpaid, we have received word that they have extended her leave. We aren’t exactly sure for how much longer, nor do we want to take advantage of their grace. Moreover, our health insurance deductible is paid through her paycheck. So we are working through those details….but we’d like to report this as a praise overall. Though there are some financial hiccups in there, Leah is blessed to work for great and understanding employers.
Lastly, I wanted to take a moment and flesh out my theology on prayer. I mentioned in an earlier post that this, among many other things, was something I couldn’t shake from my mind. How then should we pray? Obviously the Bible speaks pretty clearly on prayer, especially with Jesus instructing us how exactly to do it in Matthew 6. How does this translate to my life. Here is what I’ve come up with. Though I strongly believe I have not pioneered some new way of praying, I also haven’t stolen this from anyone other than what I see in scripture and how best I know how to practically apply it to my life.
Through this journey my prayer life, along with many of yours, has grown (one of many blessings from all this). Questions arise like:
Why do we pray?
or
Why do I ask for others to pray?
I don’t believe that The Lord waits until he receives a particular number of people prayer before he’ll answer in our favor. It’s not like we need 750 people praying for Beckett for him to be healed, and if we only hit 749, God won’t heal our son. So again, I asked…how does it work? That’s a question I don’t want to attempt to answer in this post. But I will explain HOW I pray (for those of you still reading this post).
I don’t believe it is ‘wrong’ to request and ask the desires of our heart. However, I’m learning how finite I am, and how great He is! Example in scripture of The Lord working out amazing plans through difficult circumstances:
1) Joseph. Sold into slavery. Imprisoned. Yet became Second in command next to Pharaoh.
2) I’ve referenced Job before and
3) Abraham with his son Isaac.
God has already used Beckett in ways that we could never have imagined, yet in my weakness I feel as if I could somehow have had a say in all this before it happened over a month ago, (even knowing what I know now) I would still decline to go through all this agonizing pain once again. So I slowly begin to learn to pray to align my desires to the Lord’s will rather than ask for the Lord’s will to align with my desires. With that being said, I’ll try to wrap up now.
1) I pray for the desires of my heart (‘Please continue to heal my son, God’), but as an act of transparency, sincerity and honesty of my feelings and desires.
2) Next I pray for the Lord’s will to be done (Matthew 6:10) as an act of trust and respect to my Lord.
3) Lastly, I ask for The Lord to work in my heart for peace of whatever the outcome may be….his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2). This is clearly the most challenging prayer, but evokes sanctification and a necessary step in my prayer life.
I hope that helps or was of some value to you. This mindset has really helped me pray what I believe is a pleasing, sincerely and effective prayer.
Love you all (and I mean that, even if we’ve never met). Thank you for praying for my son. We’ve come so far, and I believe the Lord has great plans for my son’s life.
Oh, and if you get the chance, check out Beckett’s blog to find ways to get involved. The Benefit Concert will be awesome, and I’m so thankful to everyone who has helped make this happen. We are forever grateful to you all!
https://heartofbeckett.com/
Heart of Beckett 
I am grateful to have you as my son!
Jonny, above you asked for prayer and appeared to be unsure if the numbers mattered. I assure you they do and you were right to feel moved to reach out to your spiritual family. You then said, Love you all (and I mean that, even if we’ve never met). Thank you for praying for my son. We’ve come so far, and I believe the Lord has great plans for my son’s life.
I am not a member of your family but a friend of Joshua.
You are also right that God has great plans for your son. They have already been made and Beckett is already ministering in God’s work. As you said above, God has already called on Beckett to serve him. The Lord has found favor in Beckett. So much so that he has been given the ultimate honor to be with him.
Asking others to pray is asking for our spiritual family to come together and give you support.
My prayers will join the others in asking God to give you comfort. My deepest condolences and caring wishes to you and Leah during this difficult time.
Douglas,
I am by no means unsure of the power in numbers, especially in regards to prayer. And it is a question I wanted to address, but knew I would be long winded in the latter portion of my update. Thank you so much for you prayers, and I am grateful for all the others who too have joined in this journey along with my son. Please keep the prayers coming. To God be the glory!
~Jonny