Our Helper through all the Fallen World Messes

Dear Prayer Warriors.

I always pictured my family driving a tough, beastly looking Colorado family car like an Armada or Sequoia with oval stickers of my fatherland and motherland on the bumper. Then our second car, -my work car would double as a date night ride perhaps a youthful BMW. Just talkin’ out loud here. That’s my American dream. But God writes better stories than I. My dreams and aspirations are like toilet paper compared to His scrolls about my life. My wife held me in a hug yesterday and told me how much she loves me because I’m about to turn 40, mid-life, and instead of shopping for a convertible I’m shopping for a second minivan. Friends, it is God’s grace to us that we are most likely going to be a double minivan family soon! I find minivans to be a slice of humble pie, life with the flashy-rough edges taken off. But God is blessing this. We need two because if the converted minivan isn’t working we need a car that will still fit Anna, Simon, and her chair.

Through the long and complicated ramp van process, God has made it clear to me that I need to fixate on Him and all other things will be taken care of. God never intended anyone to have to look for a van with the thought of installing a wheelchair ramp. God never wanted a 4-year-old to be wheelchair bound, blind, speechless, and tube fed. His permissive will has allowed it and in time it will bring Him glory.  I’m sure like me, God hates the prices of such vehicles, yet they are a great help to those that do receive one. 

All this time we spent with insurance paperwork, and with dealers looking at vans is a product of living in a fallen world. I am willing to wager that heaven isn’t going to be days of searching the specs on Toyota Siennas born in the last 3 years under 24K that will interplay with a 25k VMI E360 manual conversion ramp. -That’s all fallen world bureaucracy that causes weariness. It would make any believer cry out “Come quickly Lord Jesus. I’m sick of this mess”

God’s active will, means that in spite of this cloud of complications due to sin. He wants to hear about what type of ramp we need to best suit Anna. we must tell Him what are going through and lay it all down at His feet.  Its His grace to us that He gave Jesus for the entanglements of these fallen-world messes. Through it all we see Jesus Shepherding us through this muck and mire of His once sinless, beloved world now profoundly handicapped by sin.

Saints, there is already answered prayer and praise due for how far and long we have been asking for this ramp van. The approval for the conversion is in our hands. For the first time in months they are waiting on us. We need the right van, who are we to get this far with Him and then buy a van hastily without Him. So, can we pray that God will bring this into completion? With great peace, full faith, and the Spirit’s wisdom we remember that God is the giver of good gifts.

Please Pray for:

-us to buy the right car, able to meet all the conversion company requirements and our family’s needs for as long as possible. That we receive the van converted and ready for use by the end of July.

- faith that God will make all things new and labor with us by His Spirit until its completion as we depend on Him more.

-Anna’s healing from GERD and her esophagus damage to be healed with a touch from the Healer’s hand. May this new antacid help renew the damaged tissue. Anna had an endoscopy last week still showing damage to her esophagus however she is continuing to improve. The Nissin surgery is still not recommended. Pray she responds well to the medication.

-the spastic quadriplegia to be miraculously healed causing her neurological system to make healthy neurological connections and no longer manifest cerebral palsy.

-that we would receive a new bath chair, stroller and stander because she has outgrown all of these.

We have seen Anna improve greatly regarding all things respiratory this year, I’m eager to see where else God will surprise us with betterment! in her reflux? her speech? her vision? her neurological damage? I will boast in Him regardless because He has done great things already for Anna.

In praise and thanks to God,

The Currats

The Glorious Reservation

Dear Prayer Warriors,

A couple of weeks ago I caught up with a dear brother that helped me out so much the day Anna was born and thereafter. We talked about how God’s love and presence must reach Anna in such a different way because of her silence, childlikeness, and disability. I told him that she gets attentive and lights up with joy when we sing to the Lord. This brother told me that he has no doubt that the famous hymn lyric applies to Anna: “In my heart there rings a melody of heaven’s harmony.” He suggested that God is pitch perfect with her because her soul is not seduced by worldly things, rather the gracious call of her Maker fills her days. It brought me such joy at imagining how unique that must be. Anna is no angel but certainly she’s angelic in attentiveness to the Almighty.  

How many families have a four-year-old in their house that has never spoken folly, no selfishness, no sin? No breaking things, no running off, no obsession over one movie? I just read James 3 to Anna and found a radical benefit to her witness to me. She has a tongue of purity saved for the day the Healer would loosen it for His praise. What a glorious reservation.

Anna was named after the prophet briefly mentioned in the birth narrative of Jesus (in Luke 2). Anna the prophet is remarked as worshipping night and day, being constantly in the temple praying and fasting. She was a widow for a very long time, spending her time undivided in praise of God. She saw Jesus as a baby and thanked God. My sweet daughter Anna echoes her namesake incidentally, perhaps she is constantly in the presence of God, undivided never once cursing His name. Anna’s tube feeds may not give her the pangs of hunger but she is cut off almost entirely of the joy of taste. Anna is daily in prayer with us.      

This perspective of Anna communing with God is so gracious to me, God is equipping my heart as I serve her. Sometimes I peer in and wonder what our God is making through Anna -I still ask for the miracle of full healing because God is able. One thing I tell most everybody about raising Anna is that “you always (and even daily sometimes) have to reconcile the hardships of your daughter with the goodness of God.”  

Praise the Lord for:

-the month of May marking one year since Anna has been hospitalized as an inpatient, we’re celebrating!

-after writing to our Governor regarding our Medicaid insurance request for a ramp van conversion, action has been taken, the conversion has been preapproved.

-Anna doing so great falling asleep with the CPAP mask and forced air. This coming Wednesday, we will have a sleep study to determine the strength of forced air needed.   

Pray for:

-Anna to hold up her head completely and consistently.  

-her to stop chewing her hands constantly and that her wrists sores would heal.

-increased ability to track objects with her eyes, that she would persist in engaging the world around her with whatever vision she has.

-physical therapy milestones to arrive like sitting independently, crawling, walking, and balancing.

-her hip joint to form well so “the ball doesn’t leave the socket”.

-guidance regarding a surgery to install a Jejunum tube (a feeding tube to the intestine) reducing exposure to radiation.

-greater success in communication through assistive devices.

-wisdom in selecting a van, the conversion company, and the dealer through whom this long process must continue through, that we would be patient.

-another year of no illness related hospitalization.

-Thanksgiving to God for our night nurses ensuring we all get rest.

We’re honored by your service of prayer,

Nic, Lindsey, Anna, and Simon    

Connecting over Comparing

Dear Prayer Warriors, 

As I watch and interact with Anna it has become clear to me that she doesn’t compare herself to anyone else. If Anna spent her days comparing herself to her brother Simon, i think she would live discouraged by everything he does that she doesn’t. Instead she evidences sympathy. When Simon cries a brief, hasty tear about not getting yogurt for dessert, anna will join him with an immensely sad trembling lip, crying inconsolably for minutes.  No matter how frivolous Simon’s crying is she will join him with heartache. Anna longs to connect with others not compare herself to others. Another example is when we laugh out loud because silly is commonplace around here, Anna will join us with her slight delay. There is a desire for inclusion in her. 

Comparing can be helpful at times for parents, therapists, and doctors in medical decisions. My desire is for real connection with Anna before comparison. I have come to a point of distrust in the Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) because of the lack of connection and the excess of comparison. There is an IEP tension between what people think Anna should do and what we feel she loves and is curious about. 

The assistive communication devices are the flagship for the point I’m making. Week after week we go to a therapy center and get home bound services so that a professional can assess if Anna is bumping a button with the side of her head intentionally or not. To me it is completely not conclusive, and she is proving to be inconsistent at best. The therapist insists that we need to be identical in speech, tone, and timing when presenting choices to her so Anna’s mind can choose for herself. Anna cannot hold her head up intentionally and now we are asking her to carefully tap a button? She has cerebral palsy which means that her neurological system makes her body misfire (do movements that are uncontrolled) frequently. Anna is communicating, not through a button or a monitor. Maybe older forms of communication need to be explored. 

So we need prayer. We want Anna’s days to be filled with communication so that she can connect with others not like her, with people who want to be with her rather than try the latest technology on her disabilities. That is why we love our night nurses, they are trying to be gentle and understanding of her. Whereas teachers, therapists are more of the mindset of what can I do to help her make her milestone, so they throw the books at her.

I dream of Anna also connecting daily in spiritually enriching activities. Where praise songs and Bible readings are in the air daily. A place God is encountered and depended on. Where healing isn’t the bottom line, rather the hunger is for the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit who points to Christ and the fullness of every spiritual blessing is found always. Healing is the manifest presence of God but so is His peace, and patience, kindness, gentleness, meekness, joy, love.

Where are the Special Education Christian Schools? Where is a lab of biblical faith for the disabled? Where full healing is imminent because the manifest presence of God is there. Is there a school where the tuition is paid for in prayer, fasting, and in believing God for things not seen of yet? Where Anna is educated by familiar, loving relationships with people are Christ’s ambassadors. Where research, and counsel for medical decisions are bathed in prayer and waiting on God?  

 Please pray for:

-Anna to grow close to children her age that show a desire of friendship with her

-us as we increase intentional interactions to “play to her strengths” of connecting and engaging

-Anna’s full healing through Jesus Christ because He is our life

-God’s grace to bestow growth and learning for Anna however traditional or unconventional it may be

-open doors to therapy centers/ therapists that believe God is using their gifts for His kingdom

-Anna to sleep through the night with the CPAP machine and mask, 

-the denial or approval needed to move forward on getting a ramp van

-an increase in date nights for Lindsey and I 

-the medical decisions we face about upcoming surgery possibilities regarding a separate j-tube port, and the reflux surgery

-clear direction about amending the communicative device therapies, what are other avenues of communication 

-Anna’s increased ability to engage her surroundings with her fine motor skills and vision

-a supernatural halt of Anna’s tendency to chew her wrists

-the Word of God  and the ministry of praise to be sweeter than honey to Anna’s heart, mind, body and soul

Very Thankful for your powerful prayers, 

Nic, Lindsey, Anna, and Simon