Deeper Still

I had the amazing opportunity to attend the Deeper Still conference this weekend with Beth Moore, Priscilla Shirer, and Kay Arthur. All 3 women are amazing Bible teachers. Before the conference, I really could think of a million reasons to stay home. We have been so busy this summer between Nathan being in the hospital, doctor appointments and our trip to St. Louis. Just last Thursday Nathan was diagnosed with bronchitis after having a bad cough for a few days. Most of all I hated to leave him. I really just wanted to stay home. I am tired.

I tell you all that to say that I feel like God intended for me to be there to hear His word spoken. It seems over the last year I have felt kind of dry spiritually. Last summer as the boys were diagnosed with Alpha-1, I found myself in the midst of a spiritual crisis of sorts. I had so many questions – all revolving around Why? I found myself a little angry at God (I hate to admit that). But gradually, I came to a point where I could see and feel God’s hand in our situation. I have come to realize that God is in control of our lives and in order to face each day, our faith has to be in Him and Him only. I have come to know that all of my questions will never be answered and they do not have to be. But lately, I feel more like I have been just going through the motions of religion rather than having a true one on one connection with Jesus. After all, it is not religion that is important but our personal relationship with Jesus. I think the last year has left me kind of at the bottom of the barrel I guess. I needed this weekend to pull me back out and to give me new focus in my relationship with Christ. Maybe it is not the bottom of the barrel that I have been at but instead facing a wilderness season in my life.

Priscilla spoke eloquently from the book of Exodus. It seems that when God most wants to reach us, he places us in the wilderness. Now each person’s wilderness will be different. The wilderness is facing hardship or trial. Being in the wilderness is not fun. The wilderness can be a place where you feel alone, afraid, desperate even. It is hard to think that God places us there on purpose. But, what if that is the only way that God can mold us, teach us. When we are flat on our back, where else is there but to look up? What if during this time of wilderness we place our focus on Him? I wish I could outline for you all she had to say, but I can’t. I came away knowing certainly that I have been facing a wilderness time in my life. I guess I didn’t need a conference speaker to tell me that. But I was reminded that it is during this time that I need to most focus on Him. God has something planned for me (all of us). God wants to reach me (all of us). While I am in the wilderness, I need to “pitch my tent, camp out and don’t miss what God has planned.” Wanna join me in seeing what God can do in your life? Let's go Deeper Still...

Welcome to Holland

A while back I came across a poem titled, Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley. It seems to be floating around the internet quite frequently. The poem speaks about raising a child with a disability and trying to describe it so that others might understand. Personally, I do not think of Nathan as having a disability because of his transplant. Actually, it is quite the opposite. I think that he has been given a wonderful gift and that he now has the opportunity to live a full and wonderful life. So I read the poem a little bit differently. He may not have a disability but we have been faced with a chronic medical condition that has changed our plans a bit. When first finding out about Nathan and Harrison's diagnosis of alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency part of the process of dealing with it was grieving for the loss of (what I thought) were my two perfectly healthy boys. I had so many thoughts of, "It's not fair," "Why them," "Why us,"
"How will this affect their future," "Why can't they be healthy." Fortunately, I did not stay in that frame of mind too long. But, I do think that it is normal to have those thoughts and to question the fairness of it all as long as you can eventually come to a place where you can turn to God and say, "Okay God, I don't understand it all, but I am willing to trust you and allow you to give us strength and carry us through." But, I think that you do have to acknowledge that things are different, but different is not always bad. We have learned a lot throughout the last year. We have learned how to trust more and have strengthened our faith. We have seen and felt the love of many friends and family. I could go on and on about that.... But, the point is - sure, our lives are now different than we had planned but our life is wonderful and we are blessed. You could also take this same poem and apply it to any change of plans in your own life. Whatever our circumstances, we have to take what we have been given and enjoy our trip to Holland...

Welcome to Holland
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley

Donate Life Month

April is Donate Life Month. National Donate Life Month was established in 2003. Every day in April, people across the U.S. make a special effort to celebrate the tremendous generosity of those who have saved lives by becoming organ, tissue, marrow, and blood donors and to encourage more Americans to follow their fine example(organdonor.gov). We are so thankful for Nathan's donor and donor family for making the decision to give the gift of life. I have been thinking about the day that we received the call that a liver was available for Nathan. Many people have asked us what that day was like. I thought that I might tell a little bit about it here.

Nathan had been listed for transplant during the middle of November. He had to be removed from the transplant waiting list during December because of an infection. He had been placed back on the list the week before Christmas. Even though he was listed, we didn't have a sense that Nathan's transplant would be right away. We actually did not know what to think. It really depended on who we talked to as far as being given a time table (of course no one really ever knows). We were told that it could be that day or many months away before a match was found. I tell you all that to say that we were not sitting around waiting on the phone to ring. We tried to go ahead and live life as normally as possible, even though thoughts of transplant did dominate our minds.

On Christmas Eve Nathan did not feel very well. He had very little appetite and had been tired all day. When it was time to go to my parents house for dinner, Nathan was lying down on the tile floor in our foryer, because he did not feel well and did not want to walk to the car. He was receiving IV antibiotics four times daily to help clear up his infection. It was very hard to see him so sick and to see his health deteriorating. I remember hoping that his transplant would be soon because it just felt like we were on the verge of him becoming even sicker. At the same time, I could not imagine thoughts of transplant and actually putting Nathan through such a huge surgery. There were just so many unanswered questions and so many unknowns about everything. We really did have to fully place our trust in God. We knew that only He had the answers and only He knew the timing.

Christmas Day arrived and Nathan was so excited. He had received a guitar and a talking parrot that he asked Santa to bring. We had lunch with our family. We had eaten and opened presents and had just begun to let the kids play with their Christmas toys when Stephen happened to notice a couple of missed calls on his cell phone from a number that we did not recognize. I had left my phone in the car (we really were not expecting a call on this day!). Someone suggested that we might should see who had called since after all, weren't we waiting on a call for Nathan! Sure enough, Nathan's transplant surgeon had been trying to call us himself to tell us that a liver was available. We had just gone outside because Harrison had twisted his ankle in the neighbor's yard. I was going across the street to check on him when Stephen yelled over at me that Nathan's physician was on the phone and they had a potential liver for Nathan. I am not sure how I thought I would respond when I heard those words; but when it actually happened, I felt as if the breath had been knocked out of me. There was such a rush of emotions. I was happy, thankful, scared and overwhelmed. At this point I think I was more scared than anything. It took at least an hour before I could really think about what lay ahead of us and the preparations that needed to be made.

We rushed home and started making calls and packing a few things. The next hours would be a blur. What I do remember is an overwhelming outpouring of love and support from family and friends. People began praying. Once at the hospital, all of our family arrived plus many other prayer warriors who came to offer us support and to pray for Nathan. Although we had tried to prepare Nathan a little, I am not sure that he knew what was about to take place. He was really kind of excited and happy and liked all of the people coming to see him. I am so thankful for the outpouring of support that we received on that night. It helped us to remain calm and to have peace about the whole situation. It also made this time happy for Nathan. He played his guitar for whoever would listen. He gave a lovely rendition of Jingle Bells. It was also very humbling that so many folks had left their family gatherings on Christmas to be at the hospital with us. There is so much more that I could tell you about that night. I wish that I could tell you about all of the people that spent the entire night waiting with us praying. I wish that I could tell you about all of the many kind things that our loving church family did to make the experience bearable for us. But then I would be writing for days.

Nathan was taken to surgery around 11:00 on Christmas night. His surgery was completed around 6:30 the next morning. Most of you know the story from there. His surgery was successful from the very beginning. He has not had one single complication. His liver numbers are all normal now. We have been so blessed. We have seen so many answered prayers and we have seen people reach out to us and be the very hands and feet of Jesus to our family. The fact that Nathan was transplanted on Christmas will always be special to us. Of course Christmas has always had special meaning as we celebrated the birth of our Savior, the greatest Gift of all and the One who came to give us eternal life with our Father in heaven. How fitting for us that we can celebrate Nathan's gift of life on this day that we celebrate Jesus' birth.

If you have read this far, thank you. It was helpful for me just to think through that day again and to put my thoughts down. During Donate Life Month, will you join me in being thankful for all of the donors that have made the gift of life possible for Nathan and so many others.



Lora

Back To School!!

Today was a big day in the Shelton household. Nathan had his first day back at school since he had his transplant. He has been at home since early December. Prior to his transplant, Nathan had been in and out of the hospital and was at home receiving IV antibiotics for an infection before Christmas. We received a call on Christmas day that a liver was available for Nathan. What an amazing Christmas gift! Nathan came home from the hospital on January 4th, and since that time he has been at home. I really kind of liked him being at home. While he was here, I felt like I had some control over what things he came in contact with. I hate to say that I kept him in a bubble, but I kind of did! I have made it my goal to keep him away from crowds and out of public and tried my best to keep everything clean around him. All of that had to come to an end today. But it was time. Nathan was so ready to go back to school. He was very excited today, as you can probably tell by the above picture. He could not wait to see his friends. I think he is probably tired of me pulling the camera out for everything though. It is kind of like when you have a new baby and you want to take pictures of all his firsts. I feel like I need to capture all of Nathan's firsts after his transplant. I did try to get him to take one last picture in front of the school and he quickly said, "No" and covered his head up with his jacket! I guess that was his limit. He didn't want to be seen taking a picture by the front door! I walked him to his classroom and he went right in and started unpacking his bag and talking to his friends. I felt like I was leaving him at big school for the very first time. It brought a mixture of emotions. I am thrilled to death that he is back at school and doing so well, but I also have just a little twinge of sadness that he is back in the real world, a world that I have no control over. It was also a reminder to me that God has blessed us tremendously with three wonderful boys, and it is our job as their parents to guide them and direct them and to teach them about God. But when we do that, we then have to turn them over to God and trust that He will protect them. Today I feel like I let Nathan back into the real world, and now I have to trust and have faith that it is the right time and that God will protect him and keep him healthy and safe. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." I can't think of better words to live by today. I pray these verses for all of my boys as well.

Faith

Have you ever given much thought to when you turn to God? I've given some thought to that over the past months, and I think that it is true that as long as everything is going well in our lives, we seem to be pretty self reliant. We think that we actually have control over our lives and that we can make plans and that those plans will actually take place. In essence, I think that we rely only on our own devices and don't necessarily seek guidance from our heavenly Father. Oh sure, we may thank God for our blessings and put forth our supplications or requests to Him; but I am not sure if we put our full trust and reliance on Him. I can say that before the events surrounding Nathan's diagnosis and transplant, the above described me. But what happens when something unexpected comes our way? What if our plans don't turn out to be God's plans? How is our faith affected? I think that there are two choices. Either we can totally crumble under the circumstances and get really angry at God for messing up our plans or we can choose to turn to Him and rely solely on Him to carry us through. Actually, I think it is more of a process. For me, it was more like I initially was angry and so unsure of how to turn to God. Then, as time went on I was able to see that my faith and trust could only be in Him and not on any strength that I had. Because really we have no strength apart from Him. It is almost that through a sense of brokenness, we can fully see our need and desire for a relationship with Christ. I think in this sense that going through a trial can strengthen our faith. A song by Mercy Me, Bring on the Rain has meant a lot to me over the past months. Here is a small portion of the lyrics:

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain

Can we really say, bring me anything that brings you glory? And what about when we experience pain in life - do we praise Him? If that's what it takes to praise you, Jesus bring the rain. It is almost hard to say that statement. Certainly we do not want to experience trials or pain, but if (and when) we do, will we allow the trial to bring glory to Him and will we lift up our praises to Him? I pray that we will.
Lora