These past few weeks have been filled with a lot of happiness! My son, who doctors said would never walk – is walking with his walker/gait trainer! He’s been saying more words. He’s doing so much! I fully expect one day for him to walk into the kitchen when I’m cooking. I’m expecting that because God has moved so much!

It made think about a few years back when things seemed very grim. In November of 2015 I had my first miscarriage. Then in October of 2018, I became pregnant again. We never thought that it would end so quickly. I did get to enjoy that happiness of it for a little while but ultimately we lost that baby before the 2nd trimester. Fast forward to 2019 on Easter. I woke up nauseous and realized that I needed to take a test. Sure enough I was pregnant!

I was excited and scared. In May I started having some complications and feared this would end like the rest. I prayed that God would let this baby be ok and be born. Things improved and we made it to 16 weeks. My husband and I decided to get an early gender screening. We found out it was a boy. It was so exciting. I knew in my heart it would be a boy. We did the whole big gender reveal for it too.

At 20 weeks I was working at my family’s bookstore business and a lady came up to me and said the Lord spoke to her about my baby boy. She told me that he would marvel doctors.

I was like okay wow. My eyes were not opened to what that would mean. A few weeks later at our anatomy scan we found out that our baby boy had a big problem with his heart and he had bilateral clubbed feet. The heart issue scared me and of course we were devastated. He would need immediate heart surgery.

We prayed that God would heal him. I truly believed He would heal my baby. I didn’t want him to die. My husband and I weren’t prepared for the second half of my pregnancy. Every appointment we were told more bad news about our sweet boy. Doctor’s and geneticists told us we should abort for quality of life. Instead of that snap your fingers miracle from Jesus we got more bad news.

I expected Grayson to be born fully healed. However, he was born with more congenital abnormalities than I have time and room to write and his heart was so complex that he had to be swept away to a Children’s hospital an hour away and put in their Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.

It was an ugly time for me. I was heartbroken because there was a good chance that my miracle baby wouldn’t live long. I was utterly devastated because I believed that God was going to heal Grayson and instead things were so much worse. We were looking at a lengthy hospital stay with multiple surgeries and lots of unknowns.

Grayson had his first open heart surgery and heart cath December 26 at 21 days old. Since then, he’s had 2 open heart bypass surgeries. Lots of heart caths, and multiple surgeries. We stayed in the CICU until February. We stayed in the step down unit for a few weeks then came home and went back and forth until we were admitted on March 23/24 and didn’t get out until June 17.

We’ve been home for good with a few hospital stays since June 2020. Looking back I can see God was there in the ugly. He was there with us in the hospital room as swarms of doctors and nurses surrounded our tiny boy when he coded. He was there when with us in those uncertain moments when doctors didn’t know what to do. He the God of the mountain and the valley. He’s the God who is there in joy and sorrow. He doesn’t leave us even when we are angry with Him or doubt Him.

My sweet Grayson has marveled doctors. He didn’t get one big healing miracle but lots of small miracles.

He was born without a sacrum. It’s a viral aspect to walk but he can walk! He can stand and jump even though his feet are aren’t normal. He grew hip sockets! He is deaf in one ear and has significant loss in the other but he can say some words. They told us he’d be tube reliant for good and liquid but he’s going on 1 year of eating and drinking by mouth!

God is in the ugly. If you look for Him, you will find Him. You will see Him in the good and the miracles too, but those ugly times is where I’ve seen Him the most.

“Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭13‬:‭5‬ ‭KJV‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/1/heb.13.5.KJV

“But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭4‬:‭29‬ ‭KJV‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/1/deu.4.29.KJV