Earthly Facts & Heavenly Hope

We've received some preliminary MRI results on little Will.  We are hoping for more detailed information later, but at least I can share the gist of what's going on...

1) Praising God that the bleeding on Will's brain has stopped and looks like it will heal itself.  The doctor thinks the bleeding clotted well, and the extra blood will eventually soak back into his body.

2) Will has a "weak link" of sorts in his brain.  Evidently, there are four "communicators" in our brains that tell important arteries where blood needs to go.  Unfortunately, Will never developed TWO of these communicators.  Our doctors said that if you'd MRI 100 or so people, you might find 5 people that have the same issue.  Several of those 5 people might live "normal" lives, never knowing what they're missing.  We are learning more about how how the Lord has designed the stronger parts of the brain to compensate, at times, for the weaker parts.  Regardless, for Will, in his specific situation, these missing communicators seemed to be the weak link that set off some of his other problems.

3) Will does have two spots of potential stroke on his brain, due to those communicators failing to deliver blood to the right places.  We are obviously very concerned about this, but we are cautiously hopeful that again, Will's body will heal itself a bit.  Older people's brains have spent years "mapping" - learning how to function and perform basic things.  When older people have strokes, they can be devastating, because those "maps" are destroyed and very difficult to rewrite.  In a baby, however, much of this mapping hasn't even taken place.  Though Will's brain IS injured, we are going to be moving ahead with lots of therapy in hopes of teaching the stronger parts of his brain to take over some of the injured places.

4) The seizures were a symptom of this sort of "perfect storm" that was brewing in little Will's body.  He is currently on anti-seizure medication that seems to be controlling things well.  These meds might be a long-term and/or forever sort of thing for him.  We will really need to watch him carefully and stay up-to-date with some special doctors in Sioux Falls.

So...  Those are the facts.  We've been inundated with test results, percentages, research...lots of facts.  The thing we are trying to remember, though, is that these facts are pretty "earthly".  Yes, the facts are super helpful and are useful for figuring out a game plan for Will's health, but they are still finite.  They are what the world says about our baby.  This is what the wisdom of man declares about his health.

However (and this is a big however), the Truth of God is so much bigger and more powerful than all of these things.  Though the test results and the facts say that Will's brain is underdeveloped, that he may have developmental delays, that he may live a life full of medication, that he may struggle with more seizures or areas of stroke...  We believe the Lord can break off ALL of these things, heal all of these things, and cause all of these facts to be totally TRUMPED by His supernatural power at work in Will's life.

Though the MRI shows areas of concern in Will's little head, we are hopeful, knowing the earthly facts do not need to determine his destiny in life. 

A couple of days ago, a handful of our friends stopped by to pray over Will.  We prayed for supernatural creativity, skill, wisdom, and power in Will's life.  We are hopeful that, someday, people will see Will's life, be amazed by the favor that rests upon him and wonder what's special about him.  We will enjoy telling them the story of Will's rocky start, and of the plans the enemy had for his demise.  We will rejoice in recounting the story of how God placed His helmet of protection over his head, cancelled all the enemy's plans, and won the battle for our little Will.