Ebenezer Day

On this month, 8 and 9 years ago, our family walked through the toughest trials we have ever experienced. Death sentences are hard to swallow, and God used them to draw us, our families, our church family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers to Himself.

This precious, tiny, 80-year-old British doctor, a hematologist, sat across from my mother-in-law and Brandon three days after we gave birth to our first son. She told them Brandon’s diagnosis of the rare PNH. She said, “This is basically a death sentence. You are handling it very well.”

Brandon’s mom understood the odds and limitations and medical factors going into this. Brandon and I did not. We were definitely in the dark because of our ignorance. And because of this ignorance, we trodden the path with our eyes off of the odds and numbers. I can’t imagine the agony she walked each day knowing the unbelievable odds Brandon lived with each day.

In July 2009, Brandon received a physical life-saving bone marrow transplant at Vanderbilt Hospital where we lived for three months with Carter B, our 11-month-old and a sweet Caroline in the womb. I remember hearing the helicopter overhead (we were on the very top floor), thinking, “Brandon’s donor is laid up in the hospital overseas recovering from his donation. I can’t wait to find out who he is.” God used this time to transform our hearts and souls understanding of His complete and utter sovereignty over all things, even rare diseases.

A year later, in July 2010, a malformed artery burst inside Carter B’s brain, causing a stroke on his left side. The ICU doctor told me in every case he has seen, children are intibated when things like this happen. Carter B was only hooked up to the heart monitor and blood pressure cuff.

After 10 days at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, we were hours away from being discharged with swelling of the brain, inability to walk, etc. Then God sent in a nurse practitioner who had recently come from Memphis under Dr. Boop. We told her of our appointment with him in the coming days and that we had been on the phone with his nurse practitioner. She told us to wait a little while while she made some phone calls. Not one hour later she came back and said, “Carter is now under Dr. Boop’s care. A helicopter is coming from LeBonheur for him right now. He will fly alone. Just meet him in Memphis.”

Overwhelmed doesn’t describe how we felt. We arrived at LeBonheur on a Monday night. By Thursday morning, CB had his first surgery to remove the clot and vessels. The following Monday, he had his final surgery. We were home by that Thursday. All the while, Brandon’s mom was recovering from a vehicle accident and a broken pelvis, and my mom spent her days with a 3.5 month old Caroline as I brought her milk as often as I could from the hospital. God carried us all through this well. Prayer warriors from near and far lifted this boy and his family up. Praise the Lord that His plans are best.

The word Ebenezer means a reminder of what God has done. Carter has a huge scar on his scalp that we call his ebenezer. He doesn’t love it now, but one day he will be able to tell others about just how God used this ugly scar to save his physical life so he could spend his life telling others about Jesus and his love. Brandon has a larger than normal scar from a failed splenectomy. It was performed to hopefully cure a disease they thought he had. But it didn’t. However, it is an amazing symbol of all that God has done and will do in these men’s lives.

I read 2 Kings 20 earlier this week and was so encouraged. “In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.'” Then he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying, “Remember now, O LORD, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “Return and say to Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of your father David, “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD. I will add fifteen years to your life, and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.”‘””

‭‭2 Kings‬ ‭20:1-6‬ ‭NASB‬‬

I don’t know that “God’s mind was changed” as a result of Hezekiah’s prayer, but Hezekiah was humbled with the knowledge of his physical fate and went straight to his knees before the Father. Humility begins where our strength ends. And for me, that’s every single day! My strength is extremely limited. Trials, sickness, affliction these all come to us to show us one universal truth about ourselves: WE NEED A SAVIOR! That’s it. That’s all. And that is all we need to be sure of in this life is that there is a God and we are not Him and that we really really really need Him. When we humble ourselves, God shows us our need and can fulfill our need with HIMSELF!

Go to Him, the author and perfecter of our faith, your Creator, your Sustainer, the one Who holds the world together by the Word of His power. This God, the Only True God, deserves our praise, respect, whole lives devotion. He walks us through calamity and may or may not deliver us from it. It’s not the deliverance that makes God our God. It’s His sovereign control over all things that makes Him our great God.