Exceeding Abundantly

   

   Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.                                                                    

                                                                                    Ephesians 3:20-21

    "Above all that we ask or think" 

  

    My dad reminded me of these words this week as Aaron has been going through open heart surgery. 

    On Friday Aaron was taken for his first open heart surgery. The Norwood Procedure it's called. You all know that the days and months before now we have been asking for your prayers as we prepared for that day, but I didn't know just how greatly God was going to answer those prayers. I had an unexplainable peace that I know came directly from our great God. He has been so good through all of this. Aaron came out of surgery great, the surgeon left his chest open because there was some extra bleeding. This is not uncommon and happens frequently with the type of surgery Aaron had. So we went down for a late lunch because we were told it would be an hour or so until we would be able to see him in his room. When we got back to the waiting room our nurse came to find us. There was even more bleeding than they thought. they had to go back in and try to figure out the problem. This took another few hours. Praise the Lord that they had kept his chest open! We finally got to go and see him around 6pm. Oh the difference that day made. Our sweet boy, who had looked completely perfect that morning when I placed him in his bed, now was full of tubes and wires and I could see right into his chest cavity. When they say they keep the chest open, it is OPEN. We actually watched our baby's heart beating inside his chest. And it was incredible. God has created us so intricately. And the fact that our surgeon knew how to deal with such a little heart is amazing. 

   Saturday morning we came in and the surgeon was there waiting for his OR team. They were going to close his chest! Awesome news, because that means they were no longer worried about the bleeding or fluids. And it was one step closer to him healing! A few hours later and our baby looked a little more like our baby. He has a nice big bandaid over his incision now. The next step after getting the chest closed was getting the chest tubes out and getting him off the breathing tubes, too. The breathing tubes can come out once he proves that he can breath on his own. And the chest tubes come out when there is no more bleeding or fluids coming out. Saturday night during rounds the Critical Care Attending wanted to see him breath on his own so he turned the ventilator way down...and he breathed! Talk about exciting! So they turned it back up, but not al the way to where it was and he was taking a few of his own breaths each minute. Well on his way to breathing on his own! After rounds the Attending said just how well Aaron was doing after just having surgery the day before. His nurses keep saying it too.

    Sunday morning we came in and right away I noticed something looked different but I couldn't quite see what it was. Our nurse said, "Well, do you notice anything different?" Chris right away said, "Oh, the chest tubes are out" Yay! Chest tubes are out! Such a big step! We were pretty excited. He has been pretty sleepy still today, and they are wanting him to wake up a little more so that he will breath more on his own and they can see if they can take that ventilator out. Tomorrow would be the earliest. Again all day we were told just how awesome Aaron is doing this soon post surgery. 

    This is where dad reminded me of that verse above. 

    I have such a hard time just rejoicing in all that God has done. God has been so good. One thing after another He has been showing us that He is doing "exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think" And I am sitting here just waiting for something to go wrong. His heart to not work. His breathing to stop. But God is good! He's hearing all the hundreds of prayers that you all are praying for our precious boy. Aaron is completely in God's hands and there is nothing that can change that. He is such an amazing boy and I cannot wait to see what God is going to do with his life. All I know is it will be better than I could ever dream for his life. God has been doing more than we can ask or think. God is good and His faithfulness is never ending!