Grateful - John Morgan

Have you ever had your world turned upside down? Have you had your peaceful life of monotony, that drives you crazy at times, but also lulls you into a sense of security with its syncopation of task and plans, disrupted by an event of total un-known? If you have, you know this storm can be strong and hard. If you have not, take heed. Hard is not always bad. A life without storms may just be a desert.

I am a summer camp director at Sky Ranch. I had been planning a surprise getaway for my wife and me the week before we would start staff training. I had thought that this trip would be the perfect form of relaxation to get me ready for a great, but busy summer. Things did not go as planned. (do they ever?)

A week and a half out from our highly anticipated get away my 7 year old son, Boston, got sick during one of his baseball games. Being a family with three kids we are no stranger to the stomach bug.  As Boston began to complain of his stomach pain we began to re-plan the week to cover the two days of missed school and our friends avoiding us like the plague. But this did not meet our expectations. It destroyed them.

After a day and a half of progressively getting worse we realized this was no bug. We finally gave into our overactive imaginations of what could be wrong with our son’s stomach and we found ourselves rushing to the clinic and then to the ER.

By 2am we found ourselves in ICU with a child that had become so weak he could not stay awake between times that he would vomit. The scans they preformed showed massive infection throughout his entire abdomen. The doctors were trying to get him stable enough to transport to Children’s Hospital in Dallas. We were told that we should prepare ourselves that this could get really bad really quick.

A sleepless night for his mom and me led to a morning of decisions. (perfect combination)  After a night of IVs of Antibiotics the doctors felt he was safe for transport. We decided to make the flight to Children’s.  The brilliant staff at Children’s whisked him into surgery and within a matter of hours we had an answer to the only question we cared about for the last 2 days. Our son had a large hole in his intestine due to what they call a “Meckels Diverticulum”. Essentially, everything from his intestine was spilling out into his gut and poisoning his body from the inside. They were able to remove the damaged section of intestine with this procedure. 

The storm for us was not over yet. We spent a week in recovery at children’s. At times I was scared, grateful, confused, hopeful, inadequate but always dependent. I had no other choice. I had to depend on the Lord. The storm brought clarity of His control and my lack there of.

My son taught me so much through his faith. Never feeling the illusion of control at such a young age he had a great perspective. The day we got home from the hospital one of my friends asked Boston to sum up his time in the hospital in one word. Now, before I give his response, I want you to remember his experience.  My son had 2 IVs in both arms and then one in his hand. He could not go an hour without throwing up for 2 days straight. He had a catheter put in and then pulled out. He also had a tube shoved down his throat not to mention everything that went into the surgery and recovery.  Even after all of that, my 7 year old’s response to summarize his experience was “Grateful”.

(Jeremiah 17:5-8 ESV)

Thus says the LORD:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

“Blessed (filled with God defined benefit) is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

I, too, find myself like my son being grateful for the time in the hospital close to the God I love. Not just grateful for provision but grateful for the storm. I am different because of it. May we all learn to be trees that are so planted by his water that we can withstand the storms and droughts and still produce the fruits that spell His name to the world.