Healing Place

Wow! It was brought to my attention recently that it has been a long time since our last blog post. It's hard to believe it's almost been a year.

This past year has been a VERY challenging year. I had three surgeries on my right elbow, we moved to Baton Rouge, I started a new job, left the new job and started my own business, changed churches, heard God's voice, responded to God's voice (inspire of being afraid). We've had some Big battles, and some big victories. But most of all, this past year (much like the name of our church) has been a real place of Healing for us!

My elbow is doing as good as I can remember, my new business is a real dream come true, our finances re not great but my faith for it is better, our kids are stronger, my wife is growing, and God sever expanding our relationships, security, and our understanding of Him!!! I guess you could sum it up by saying, we are blessed!

Thank you for your prayers, thank you for your concern, thank you for your tears, thank you for you financial help, and most of all thank you for helping us keep our eyes on Jesus!

More to come....

Being in Today

"This is the day the Lord has made". I've honestly struggled with
that scripture most of my life until now. I've thought so many times,
"That must be some sort of punishment." Most of us have had at least
one day that has been filled with sorrow and pain. We think, "This
can't possibly be credited to the Lord Yes, he caused the sun to
rise, but if I close my eyes maybe it will go away." The
acknowledgement that this IS the day the Lord (and soverign Lord at
that) has made is such a solemn acknowledgement. It's such a trust
issue. It's a moment of truth where we say, "I trust YOU, God. And I
will be IN today - fully and completely. " Some of you may have heard
the song "I will praise You in this storm." I don't have all of the
answes and I have no idea how the details of life will work out, but
in the middle of what feels like a whirlwind sometimes, I can remind
myself, my kids, my friends, what I do know is true. God has given us
unmerritted freedom to walk in, to sing in, to live in, to shout in.

As for us today, it's been a road full of joys and sorrows. It's still
a daily progress for Jonathan's strength and healing. But fight, he
does to walk and stand in freedom. I will walk and stand with him. We
are constantly aware of God's mercy to us, especially when we see
others we love suffer with true pain of death, terminal illness,
divorce..... We know our season of pain will pass. We pray for those
whose losses seem permanent.

Our move to Baton Rouge has been more than we could have possibly
known we needed. We are honored to be part of this Body here and feel
we have SO much to learn. We are digging our heels in for the long-term.

We love you all and miss you.

Carla

Remembering India 1996 when finding a quiet place to escape with the Lord felt impossible. So thankful for the lesson of finding quiet with Him in the middle of noise and chaos.

So the first round of cultures came back Graham positive with rods meaning bacteria. However, that was drawn from his picc line so they took new cultures from his arm and we have to wait 48 hours for those results to see if the bacteria is in his blood or just the picc
If it's just in the picc they'll tale it out and we should be able to go home soon after. If it's in his blood we're gonna be here for a long time. His blood / factor levels are looking better though.

Jon's Update: We're still in the hospital. Jon's blood levels kept dropping so they have really upped his factor levels. That seems to be a bit more stable. However, this morning, the nurse came rushing in and began two new very strong antibiotics usually used for treating staph and took 4 more bottles of blood cultures. When we asked her about it, she said she couldn't talk to us about it. No explanation. We could be here a while. Pray for jon, pray for our kids who are with great friends who came in from out of town to help, pray for our finances. We love you all!

Going Home

Day 8: We hope to be going home this afternoon. Jon is doing better
but had a rough afternoon yesterday after his doctors stretched his
arm to capacity and splint it in that position. He is off of all IV
pain meds in hopes they will release him. He is ready to go home. I
think he misses his babies ;-) Its been a bit of a lonely week for me,
wanting to talk with him about anything and everything like we
normally do. I know it's just a season. I'm thankful it's just a
season. I'm thankful he came out of that operating room like I made
him promise he would :-)

We will ne trying to clean and move all the way into our new house
this weekend. We have lots of cleaning, painting and laughing to do if
any of you are interested.

Love you all.... Please remember us in our journey ahead. We now look
forward to much healing and supernatural provision for our family.

Learning A Lot About Hope and The Quiet Nearness of God,

Carla

Day 6 Post - Op:

Its been a long and winding road. Jonathan is doing well, but is of
course in tremendous pain. He has developed a large bruise on the back
of his arm and last night ortho had to come in and loosen the splint
as he was swelling immensely. It was quite the fight to get them back
up here. As of right now, the splint will come off tomorrow to check
for more potential swelling and hematomas. Note to you: don't ever
leave anyone you love alone in the hospital. While we are grateful to
have doctors, they are looking after MANY patients and are spread so
thin, you have to make your loved one a priority to them. Needless to
say, yesterday afternoon was rough. He is resting now. Thank you for
believing.
Carla

Day 2

Watching Jonathan finally sleep for the first time.  Tremendous pain. Bleeding factor levels very low. Adjusting that. Can't get pain under control so going to do a 3 day nerve block. Will prob be in hospital all week. He's in the thick of it. His is a life filled with excruciating pain and completely indescribable joy. Working back towards the laughter.      

Carla

The Details of the Surgery

Hi Everyone,

From the time they wheeled Jonathan away to the time docs came to
talk to us was 11 hours. It's been 13 hours since I've seen him so
far. He's still in recovery

The surgeons had to completely reform his bones because they were
deformed and muscles, cut out his elbow, cut his muscle out, drill
holes in his bones and rethread his muscle back to his bone, drill a
tunnel through the center of the upper part of his bone and lower and
insert rods to hold the new elbow in and try to preserve the nerves.
The doctors and nurses came out completely exhausted.

I don't know how one person can take so much pain.

Love you all. Thank you for standing with us.

Carla, Jonathan and Family

11 hour prep / surgery

Ok, Jonathan is out of surgery. It's been 11 hours. We still haven't
seen him. It was a VERY invasive and complicated surgery. It will be a
very long and painful recovery. Don't even know how to begin to tell
you what they had to do. Thank you for praying! Keep it up!
Carla