The Hope of Home

Off and on, I have thought about home.  I have thought about our cat, Millie, and our friends and Jude's room waiting for him.  I have thought about what it will be like to have Caleb and Jude together.  I have thought about how much fun it will be to show off Jude to our friends back home.  The idea of bringing Jude home is something that fills me with excitement. 

It is a cautious excitement, however.  We are well aware that we may never bring him home.  He may never know Millie or play with Caleb or sleep in his bed.  That might not be what the Lord has for him.

We discussed with our doctor today the very real possibility of infection.  As long as there remains the communication between his brain and the outside world (the problem of his wound not healing and his CSF still leaking), then infection is a very dangerous reality.  Until he gets his heart fixed, his lack of nutrition and the medicines he is on will continue to hinder the healing of his wound.  Until he no longer has any infection, they cannot operate on his heart.  And as we wait, the greatest danger to him is infection.  Please continue to pray with us for the healing of his wound, protection from more infection, and heart surgery soon.

As I said, I have thought often about the hope of home...how wonderful it is to think of bringing Jude home.  But, with the awareness that that might never happen, I have been thinking more about the hope of our true Home...the hope of Heaven.

If there is anything that this process has taught us it is that this little boy is not in our hands.  He is in His.  He has never been ours to keep.  He has been entrusted to us for a short time (just as Caleb has been) to care for him and love him and point him to the One who made him...who loves him more than we ever could.  The One who is with him even when we can't be...and the One who gave His only Son for us.  It is my prayer that the Lord uses our little boy to point us all to Himself...and that He would continue to help us trust Him as He unfolds this story.

"Teach us to number our days aright,

that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

Psalm 90:12

"Therefore we do not lose heart. 

Though outwardly we are wasting away,

yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us

an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.

For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

2 Corinthians 4:16-18