“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Jesus Christ.”  (1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18)

Today, many things merge together in our lives.  Bishop Duncan made his annual visit to our parish today as we marked the conversion of St. Paul to the Christian faith and his martyrdom that came as a result of his efforts to bring Jesus to the people.  And today we also remember one of the few joys we had in the hospital one year ago: Evan was extubated!  For 39 days, we watched our baby boy struggle through so many things, all with a breathing tube that greatly limited our ability to interact with him.  One year ago today, and for 2 weeks thereafter, we held Evan tight in our arms once again.  And we do give thanks, even in the circumstances we find ourselves in now, because we had those 2 weeks.

I’ll never forget the emotion of that day.  Just a couple days earlier, the doctors had decided that perhaps they were having difficulty getting Evan off of the ventilator because his diaphragm wasn’t working properly.  They scheduled a minor surgery for January 26 to attempt to correct this problem.  When the surgery was over, Dr. Orr came by with a thumbs up, believing the problem of the ventilator just might be solved.  A few hours later, he was tempted to extubate Evan, but he decided to play it safe and wait one more day.  On January 27, Dr. Munoz came in and told us they were going to go for it.  They were going to pull the breathing tube and see what happened.  He asked us to move to the waiting room while they performed the extubation.  For 15 minutes, we waited nervously.  It had been well over a month since we’d seen Evan’s entire face unobstructed.  And we’d been hopeful so many times that his condition would improve…could it finally be the time?  At long last, the phone rang in the waiting room.  I jumped up to answer, assuming it would be for us.  Sure enough, Yvonne, the CICU receptionist was on the other line.  She said “Come on in!”  The excitement in her voice was almost too much.  We knew he did it!!!  The joy of that moment was so overwhelming that I cannot contain my tears even now.  We rushed back to Evan’s bedside…and I cannot put this into adequate words.  All I know is that there are moments in your life when you look at your child, and you are overcome with wonder.  He was more beautiful in my eyes that day than anything I’ve seen.  It was one of those “stabs of joy” that C.S. Lewis describes in his Surprised by Joy.  It’s every bit of grace that God has to offer rolled up in a single moment.  I cannot give it any more justice with words.  You just have to feel it to know it’s there, to know He’s there in all his Glory.  He was shining upon us and upon our baby boy that day.

2 short weeks later, we would have to give Evan over to our Lord forever.  But we stand firm in the belief that we will be with him again one day.  Too many hopeful things have happened in our lives, both before Evan’s birth and especially since his passing.  Like St. Paul, we have been converted forever.  And we will rejoice in all things, most notably the upcoming blessing of the birth of Evan’s little sister in May.  May God’s Peace and Love be upon you all, and may we all be thankful in Him forever.  God Bless.