Today Sam had a Neurolly appointment with Miss Jocelyn. Sam has been doing an amazing job since June in the Neurolly neurodevelopmental program. Due to his prematurity he basically missed the first year of development. Jocelyn has been a Godsend and her expertise and love for Sam and our family has surpassed any other therapist or professional we’ve worked with, and that has been a lot of people in Samuel’s almost 9 years of life.

As we drove home on the busy interstate on this dreary, rainy day in Indianapolis a song came on that I haven’t heard in a while. It’s called “Be Still” by Jeremy Camp, which is on a CD that came out the year Samuel was born. I believe this was the only CD that played in our car for at least 1 year. And the song was usually He Knows or Be Still. I listened to the truths sung in these songs over and over as I drove from the hospital to home or home to a dr appointment or home to the ER a few times those first few years.

Samuel’s first 5 years of life were chock full of appointments. From the NICU to pediatrics to pulmonology to GI specialists and the list goes on-you name it we visited. Samuel had a low immune system, weak lungs and his GI was a wreck.

There is nothing more painful I have experienced in life yet, but to be sitting with your child who is in pain and to search as hard as you can, but come up with nothing to help them. God taught me during that time that comfort is never the absence of pain, but comfort comes in the midst of pain. All I could do was comfort him and beg God to lead us to make the wisest decisions on his behalf, even when that meant frequent blood draws or painful procedures. And God always comforted me in every way I needed it as a mom and caretaker too.

I would drive home from another blood draw, another test, another therapy or appointment and I would cry out to God for healing, for strength and yet also in complete surrender to His will for Samuel. God didn’t have to heal my son, and I had no indication that He would, but I cried out to Him reminding myself that He is faithful as Jeremy Camp’s “Be Still” song says, and His love endures forever. He was with us every single step and only He knows how many tears I cried in the car when no one else was around, but a sleeping Sam in the back seat and oftentimes with a small Josiah in the back seat too. Josiah, Samuel’s older brother, was often with me and watching his brother go through pain, tests, appointments, so much for his little mind and heart to take in, but he was the ever faithful big brother by his little brothers side.

It was a painful road God had us on, and it was shortly after Sam was born it felt like the dream of going back to Burundi to serve as a family was never, ever going to become a reality. God said, “not now”, but He also never let the desire leave our hearts and minds. I have to be honest sometimes I was upset, why would He leave the desire to go to Burundi in our hearts when my sick child couldn’t go 3 months without a Dr visit, medicine, or tests? He wanted my husband and my boys to be my main ministry, but why wouldn’t He just take Burundi off my heart?

Well, today, on our way home from an appointment with my healthy, thriving Sam sitting in the backseat reading a book and my other two precious boys always being such troopers, I cried out praise to God again. I cannot even believe what God has done. From the leads and oxygen in the NICU incubator to a thriving young boy. From crying over the longing for Burundi still being alive in our hearts to crying over the news that we will be leaving in July as a family to serve the widows and orphans of Africa. Only God!!!!!!! Only God! Redemption, healing, newness, life. That’s what He came for and that is what we are so excited to share as we continue to minister here and as we move to Burundi, the story of amazing Love! I can’t wait to rejoice with the widows again because of what God has done.