Faith Works

I need to make it very clear what is at the center of this blog, my family, and my life, and that is Jesus Christ. He is the only reason why I can still function through all of the ups and downs and in between my family has gone through. With that being said it would be naive of me to think that everyone who reads what I am writing are going to feel the same way. This blog is supposed to help anyone who wants to read it, regardless of race, religion, or whether or not you like cocoa puffs. With that being said let me throw something out there to think about. Having a faith in a higher power gives me hope for the future. I don't have to leave anything to chance, everything that happens with my little boy is already set in motion and all that I have to do is believe. If I am wrong, if God doesn't exist what have I lost? Nothing! At least I still have that hope and that will keep me going through each day. I can believe that Mikee will get better and he will have the future I dream about. If you don't believe in God what have you lost.....hope. What keeps you going? The national average for divorce in America is 50%, that is astounding! The average for a couple who have a special needs child, or a child with medical needs jumps to 75%. If my wife and I were on our own without our faith to hold us together chances are we would be one to. You need to choose your own path in life. Just try and decide if you want to walk alone or with someone by your side holding you up.

Job

If you could meet one person, who would it be? Think about it, maybe someone historic like Thomas Edison or Martin Luther. Maybe someone famous like Brad Pitt or Tom Hanks. If the sky was the limit who would it be? If I could meet anyone I would like to meet Job. For those of you who don't know who Job was he was a person in the Bible in the Old Testament. To say Job went to hell and back would be a vast understatement. God and Satan had a conversation and God said that Job would be faithful no matter what. Job was like the Bill Gates of the time and Satan did his worst. First Job lost all his wealth and he still had faith. Second he lost his family and his faith didn't leave him. Finally Satan attacked Jobs health. It got to the point where he lost EVERYTHING he had in life, his friends told him to curse God and die, and still he held on to his faith. Job did his fair share of complaining don't get me wrong but he wouldn't let anyone convince him that his "bad luck" had anything to do with God. I would love to sit down with this man. What went through his head? How was he able to watch his entire life fall apart and still look up to the heavens and say "Naked I came from my mothers womb and naked I will return. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away but blessed be the name of the Lord." I pray that throughout the end of my life no matter what God sees fit to have my family and I go through I will be able to have faith like that. That someday someone might be able to hear about my life and be encouraged like I am when I read about Job.

Emma Faith

It has been a while since my last post and that is because we have a new member in our family. Emma Faith was born on January 24Th. I know that was a while ago but like so many other things in our lives God wanted to teach us with Emma. Ever since Mikee was brought home 4 years ago Heidi and I prayed for the same thing every night. If/when we have another little one please God make her healthy. Emma was born and she was able to come home, she was healthy and beautiful. (And big 9lbs 8 oz!) We thought everything was perfect and then 2 days later we found ourselves in the one place we didn't want to be.....the hospital. Emma had RSV which is a respiratory infection that can be deadly for infants. Heidi and Emma spent the next 10 days in the hospital in isolation while Mikee and I were at home. Thank God she is home and everything is OK but this was an interesting situation for our family to say the least. The uncertainty which has been our life with Mikee wasn't there in this situation. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Emma was going to be fine but I was so mad at God I can't even describe it. No matter how much faith is present in my walk with God I still find myself at times saying why? Why is Mikee suffering the way he is, why have I worked for 2 companies and they both closed down. WHY? If you know my family you know that there are many more things I can mention but this isn't a woe is me type of story. No matter what gets thrown at us one thing has never changed and that is the fact that we believe that God has a plan, and even though we may not like it we do know that He has our best in mind. With Emma this didn't change for me. I was mad because I felt like we were messed with. To me it was like God said "here you go, a healthy, beautiful baby girl. Take her home and start your new family." and then two days later He said "just kidding." She's home now and she is healthy, and through this God gave me direction. Everything went according to HIS plan not mine. I have to remind myself that even when things don't go as planned it doesn't mean they are going wrong. I guess the real trick now is to see how I listen.

The Not So Round Table

About the second week that Mikee was in the nicu his doctor came to us and said she wanted to have a round table discussion to address his future. A round table discussion turned out to be all of his doctors and nurses sitting on one side of a long rectangular table facing Heidi and myself. The "discussion" seemed more like a lecture than a discussion. Both the doctors and the nurses just kept on shooting questions and statements at us that for two parents who had just been through the ringer was overwhelming to say the least. My wife did everything in her power to answer every one of the statements and questions but before long she was close to tears. You have to understand that when I get overwhelmed to a breaking point I shut down. It's terrible I know but I need to shut everyone and everything out of my mind and do nothing but talk to my creator. Needless to say I was shut down trying to take it all in praying like mad that God would give me the wisdom and perseverance I would need to get through another seemingly endless day when I heard his doctor say a sentence that I can remember clearly to this day. the doctor said "you have to come to terms that there is little to no chance us us figuring out what is wrong with your son." Without missing a beat I snapped out of it and looked at the doctor and said "you need to understand that we are a family that believes in God. My God is bigger than your science and until the day that you come to me and tell me what is wrong with our son than I believe God will heal him." the meeting didn't last long after that. I didn't write this to toot my own horn. You need to understand that even though Mikee is the greatest gift God ever gave me this journey has had more up and downs than a roller coaster, and it is only my Faith in a God that is bigger and more powerful than any science or medican that man can create that has kept me not only married to the most wonderful woman in the world, but also able to deal with the journey that we are on.

Support

Recently a family that is close to ours received terrible news regarding there little girl having cancer. We hang out with them and watch these girls regularly. This hit my wife and I like a ton of bricks. We are used to all of the hospital stuff but from the other side. We are doing whatever we can to be supportive to the family and it made me think of all of the support that we have received during the years. We have an amazing support system. Between friends and family we have always had our emotional, and financial needs met. About 2 years into our journey with Michael I received a letter from a friend of mine. I had been feeling fairly defeated at the time. We hit another dead end with all of the tests and had to start all over and I just felt like I couldn't go on. In the letter my friend talked about a time at summer camp when which we both attended. The Lord really moved that night and my friend told how much he remembered that night and he was proud of how I was able to persevere through all of the trials with Mikee. That letter kept me going and even to this day whenever I feel at the end of my rope I can read that letter and it keeps me going. I say all this because we think we have to do some huge grand gesture in order to support someone. This isn't the case. Sometimes all it takes it something as simple as a letter.

Excessive Happiness

I searched for a name for this blog. I prayed about it and then I figured it out. Excessive Happiness. When Mikee was born and the world came crashing down on my poor little family we had many, many trying days. One Sunday doctor bad news took me to the side and informed me that our son had a medical condition called Anglemans Syndrome. It would cause deformity and he would be severely disabled. Another side effect of this terrible disease (which he never had by the way, she never even had the test done. Just a very uneducated guess. Not that I'm bitter.) was he would suffer from excessive happiness. He would have no choice but to be happy all the time. And this was a bad thing? This is the way that the world sees happiness, its a bad thing. We love to see people in pain and without hope. I am proud to say that Mikee does suffer from this oh so terrible happiness, and what more its contagious because even though life might not be great for us all the time our whole family has it.

The Beginning

For those of you who don't know my family there is my wonderful beautiful wife Heidi, my soon to be daughter Emma, me of course and then there is Mikee. Mikee was born July 18Th 2007 and has had problems from the very start. Don't ask me what is wrong with him because what seems like a thousand doctors haven't been able to figure it out and for some reason God hasn't told us yet. All we know is that Mikee has what we call "episodes." They appear to be seizures and at times are big enough that it paralyzes his entire body. Because of these "episodes" he is physically behind, and arguably mentally behind. That's the Mikee that unfortunately if you don't know him that you see. The Mikee that everyone knows and loves is the happiest little boy in the world. It doesn't matter if he is getting stuck with a needle for the hundredth time or if he has just had his 8Th episode of the day he always has a smile on his face. It is a well known fact that 75% of marriages that have special needs children end in divorce. My wife and I are happy to say that we are part of the 25%. There is only one reason that we are the way we are, and that is our relationship with Jesus Christ. Mock me all you want and roll your eyes but every day that that little boy is in pain, that he looks at us with those eyes that ask you why he has to go through this you need something as a parent to lean on. We have faith. It is both that difficult to understand and it is that simple. We know that no matter how many "I don't knows" we hear, no matter how many doctors and hospitals we have to go to we are doing it for a reason. It's never easy and it never will be. But we have a God who has a bigger plan than we can fathom. Do we wish that he would find a different way, of course. The thing is ask anyone that knows Mikee, and they will tell you that there is something about that little boy that gets to you. Its not the fact that he is sick all of the time, its something else. God has a plan for our little family. We don't know what it is but we know it is going to be big. God is going to use that little boy for His kingdom.