Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow...

I didn't know being a dad would be this difficult! Some nurses have made comments about how good I am with Edmund but they don't know that I've studied child development (and taught it for 5 years.) I've got the hang of the diapers and I understand most of the medical stuff and baths are no problem. The hard part is trying to understand that he is a gift from God but not really mine. When he was really sick I prayed that God would let me enjoy him more than just a few days. It is so wonderful that the prayer has been answered - for whatever reason - but still my time with him is temporary. Lord willing, he will grow and someday will leave me and Heidi. This, of course, is a good thing, but still makes my time with him temporary; so I've got to take advantage of the time I get.

Heidi and I are very excited to go to church on Sunday. Several weeks ago our church did a cardboard testimony thing where people had two sides of a story. One was the trial or difficulty and the other was how God was apart of it. Not all the stories had happy endings. I've been thinking about how I wish they would do the testimonies every few months! God does so many things that He should be magnified regularly to encourage the body. I want to be up there with Heidi and Edmund with a piece of cardboard that says "Given hours to live...brain damage, heart failure, kidney failure..." and... well, I don't know what the other side would say yet...it is too difficult to get down to a few words. From our understanding there were several hundred people who were praying for us. I know at least 4 other churches plus e-mail groups were praying. So maybe the other side would say something about how God answered this prayer. Although, that can be confusing, too, because there are several babies here that have been prayed but the answer was not what was asked. I don't know what the other side would say: "Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow."

College Park Church has had "Great is Thy Faithfulness" as sort of a theme song...it has taken on a new dimension for us. In fact, we are so excited to worship God with song at church! (Heidi has a bunch of praise songs on our MP3 player but it is different with the Body.) I keep wondering what Pastor Anderson will have for us - my heart is prepared to worship. I can't wait to take Edmund to church and say "This is Mrs. E. She played at our wedding and worships God every week by piano." "This is Pastor Anderson, we wish he would record more CD's" "This is Mrs. Kathy - she is amazing on the violin" and so on.... and of course "This is Pastor Mark, he teaches us about our God" and finally "This is Pastor Don; make sure you get a second opinion on what he says because you can never tell when he is joking. (well, daddy can.)" Hopefully I don't bust out crying during service this Sunday. It is late and we must get home!

D