Ye Blind Behold Your Saviours Come

Dear Praying Warriors,

I’m filled with faith at the joyful task of giving you e-mail updates. It makes me pause in thanks, think about Anna’s needs, and humbly ask the ever-able Perfect Father for more with your help. I admit these prayer updates are harder to write when things are continuing to flourish. We have been delighting in her good respiratory condition, her cheer is unmistakable. We are making the most of this good weather by being outside often. Praise the Lord for this extended time of ease in Anna’s caregiving. Nonetheless I would love to turn the Lord’s gracious ear with your help upon a few things.

Anna’s “tone” or spasticity is increasingly challenging to live with. Often when we hold her she will flex backwards aggressively with her head breaking out of our holds. We need the strength not only to carry her but to counter her stubborn tone extensions. She has been on muscles relaxers but we wonder if the medication needs to increase.  

Anna’s hands and arms have been increasingly tight, she doesn’t want them touched. She gives us a fussy protest anytime we dress her (it didn’t used to be that way). Her range of motion seems lessened because she spends 80% of her waking hours chewing her wrist and knuckles. Her wrists have skin tears that have become infected at times. No matter the ointment, they can’t restore those sores. So we reluctantly use arm straighteners to prohibit the chewing so that her skin has time to heal. Her face is constantly with a rash from this self-soothing rubbing.

There is an increasing spiritual hardship that comes upon us as parents from seeing the maturation of Cerebral Palsy. We know from research that Anna’s joints, bones and muscles will start hurting more and more, and be deformed; Thus needing greater medicinal interventions, difficult medical decisions, and surgeries. In our hearts we surrender, we rally around God’s plan for Anna. We focus on taking Anna “as is” but when “as is” becomes worse than what we previously accepted, it hard to be at peace with it.

Help us recommit to remembering the journey as God guided our steps, the miraculous answers to prayers. Intercede with us for full healing to our interventionist God. Most importantly because Christ lives in us, may we not ruin our witness to the host of people watching by taking matters in our own hands. I say this in humility, may God use our family the show “Christ in us the hope of glory” amid our circumstances. In truth we are overcoming the suffering and trials only by Jesus’s peace. Aren’t parents at their best to be a channel of God’s grace to their kids?  

Please Pray:

-For Anna to adjust to the C-PAP machine and mask (it’s going really well), that it would be graciously accepted as a new nightly routine. We rejoice in the benefits it would bring.  

-For Anna to stop using repeated motions or tone to move her limbs (AKA bad neurological connections).

-May God grant His healing over Anna’s fingers and wrists from the flesh wounds and compel them to ability. Anna’s fine motor skills are hard to watch (she is inconsistent at grasping and holding anything in her hands as desired).

-For our heart brokenness as parents to be transformed into faith by Jesus Christ when we see Anna’s physical struggles turning into more hardship. She is on loan for sure and God has purposed Anna for His glory and her good.

-For Anna to see, for her to speak, for her to sit unassisted, to walk

Praise God for her eyes working even better, for no sicknesses. Bless the Lord for the extensive support we get from our government, insurances, and medical professionals. Thank you Lord for her continued good sleeping.

We sang Oh for a Thousand Tongues to Sing at church last weekend. Although we didn't sing stanza 12 its the one that make me think of Anna, I wanted to share it with you, sing it if you know the tune:)

"Hear him, ye deaf; his praise, ye dumb,
Your loosen'd tongues employ;
Ye blind, behold your Saviour come,
And leap, ye lame, for joy."

Happy New Year,

The Currats