Prayer, Soft Rock and Catboxes

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

- Psalm 139:13-16

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

- Jeremiah 29:11-13

Thank you, once again to all those who have e-mailed or called or left comments here on the ol' blog.

You may not know this but whenever one of you comments on the blog, the server forwards your comment to me in e-mail form. It was helpful yesterday at work to be receiving your comments via e-mail.

It's one of those strange things in life when you hear that someone is going through a hard time. You send them well-wishes via e-mail or a phone call. And then there isn't much more to say. All I can tell you is that it helps us so much to hear from you and even if you don't have anything new to say, say it again.

Lord knows we keep saying the same things over and over to God right now.

I think more than anything, hearing from you helps us to know we are not alone in this.

I also want to say thank you to the many people we do not know that are praying fervently for us and Annabelle.

Here is a perfect example of some of the messages we have received:

"i got this link from a prayer request sent to a prayer chain that i'm part of. i don't know your family at all, but i just wanted to let you know that you are all in my prayers. and congratulations on finding out you'll be having a girl!"

Thank you, Heidi - keep praying.

And, by-the-way, Thank you for

This

and This

and This.

Today is an important day to pray - but more on that later.

One of the surprising things about all this is how our emotions can change from minute to minute. At one point I am hopeful and strong - "Things aren't as bad as they seem! We can get through this!"

The next minute, a song comes on the Ipod or radio and I am white-knuckling the steering wheel trying to keep it together.

And then, out of the blue, I remember that I forgot to clean the cat box.

On Monday, when we got the news, the wife went home and I went back to the office to clear off my desk before heading for home myself. I stopped off at the grocery store and aimlessly walked the aisles looking for anything that looked good.

Every now and then the shelves would swoon and I would have to grip the cart for fear of losing it completely and being found in the fetal position in the cereal aisle.

As I staggered past the dairy section a little old woman sidled up to me, looked up and blurted out, "I have a joke!".

What? You have got to be frigging kidding me.

"I have a joke!" she said again, insistantly.

"Let's hear it" I replied, shaking my head.

"Did you hear about that Hollywood actress who stabbed herself in the thigh? She stabbed herself with a . . . . with a . . . . I forget. Her name is Reese . . . . Reese . . . "

"Witherspoon. With her spoon."

I chuckled. "Good one", I said. "Thank you".

And she was off.

Such is this absurd life we live - it just keeps relentlessly marching on.

The other day the wife turned to me and said, "I am going to finish my soft-rock album". Okay, I said blankly.

When we were at a friends celebrating Easter, my wife got into a conversation on the virtues of 70's soft rock with a friend. "I am going to make the best soft rock album ever!" exclaimed my wife.

"Me too!" replied our friend, "Only mine will be better than yours." And thus, the battle was joined.

Some times it just helps to stay busy.

Today we go back to the doctor's for another ultrasound. Hopefully, little Annabelle will cooperate and roll over into prime spine-viewing position. We keep holding out hope that because the doctor could not get the optimum line of sight on Monday, that things are not as bad as they seem.

We are also meeting with the genetic counselor today (whatever that is). I suppose the doctors give us the facts as they see them and the counselor helps us interpret those into what they mean for our family.

We are also tentatively planning on doing an amniocentesis although the wife and I are still discussing it.

We serve a God of miracles and we are hoping and praying for one. Although physical healing is only one of God's miracles, his miracles also take other forms as well - which I don't much feel like talking about right now - physical healing is the one we want.

So about those prayers . . .

Today we need you to pray for the following:

- That Annabelle is rolled over into the best possible position for what the Doctors need to see

- That God would touch the doctors and genetic counselor and enable them to perform above and beyond their normal abilities

- That God would work a miracle and fix our baby

- That Holly and I are able to keep our heads about us and make the appropriate decisions

- That God is revealed in all of this

And by the way, if I may be so blunt - PRAY.

Our friends and family members run the gamut of belief and non-belief and quite honestly, I am not much interested if you are Jewish, Christan, Muslim, atheist, agnostic or something in between. My only daughter is hurt - today I need you to pray.

Just start, "Dear God . . ." say your piece and close with an "Amen". It would be appreciated.

The wife is taking the day off today. I am going into work in the morning and the doctor's appointment is at 2pm today.

We will update everyone as soon as we are able.

Everywhere I go I see healthy and beautiful children. I guess people all react to these sorts of things differently. As I understand it, people going through this sort of thing can get bitter or resentful towards those with healthy children. I can honestly tell you that nothing is further from the truth for me.

More so now than ever before, the sight of a little child is a beautiful and magical thing to me. The parents may have forgotten how lucky they are and that is even better. THAT is how amazingly beautiful it all is.

To see a child in a shopping cart at the checkout with a parent whose biggest fears for their child in the last 24 hours was when they fell and bonked their head. It is an incredibly wonderous scene and it makes me want to just go up to them and say "Thank you" for brightening my day.

If you have beautiful, healthy children - take a good look today. Just watch them for a minute or so and marvel in their simplistic beauty and perfection. Then wrap your arms around them and pray for Annabelle.

Please.

"Pray without ceasing" - 1st Thessalonians 5:17

Dear God this is @!#%$ hard.