hope for baby g!

so, the cat is out of the proverbial bag so to speak.

we had a wonderful dinner tonight with our dear friends amy and kenny, who's son grayson, i wrote about here. some of you may know what we have been up to, some may not because i only have a small amount of email addresses....you can still help if you want to!

 ian and i were deeply inspired last week to help our friends who were told by their doc to rip up their carpet and put down wood to help with g's severe crazy allergies/excema but knew it was way too much money right now to do that to their house...we soon were on a mission to find a way for a Possible God to do an impossible thing.....we wanted to raise money in 1 week to be able to give our friends a new wood floor and rip up their carpet that is affecting little grayson's allergies and severe excema so badly....

i think we also wanted to "test" God to see if he was still good...i know, strike lightning at me right now..i know. sorry. but lately our world is dark, little hope, little joy, hard to find the positive, hard to smile and keep things afloat...this was not only a huge honor to do this for our friends but a blessing of healing to add to our own wounds and renew our faith in our God and see His power come alive like the crazy desperate way we need to see it since we lost sydney. it has taught us wonders and humbled us and amazed us in the midst of our darkness we sit in still....to see hope and joy multiplied in the lives of our friends makes us think it is possible for us as well maybe...

we stood in our kitchen last week and pondered, what if. what if God could really make this possible for them...by so many people that love them, all coming together and giving...if we could collect enough money, ian said he was more than ready to put the new floor down by himself for free obviously, but we had no idea what was fixin' to happen... we were awestruck once we started hearing back from people we didn't even know, who wanted to help too. i put together an email laying out what our passion and mission was and how we were excited to see God move mountains.... liam and i prayed on the floor while daddy went and "secretly" measured amy and kenny's house and within a minute of getting up from praying and checking email, there was already our first gracious love offering all the way from tennessee...just like that. it gave me chills up my arms and all over....it was really happening....we asked in the name of the Lord for him to help us and people were moved and ready and willing to help, financially, prayerfully and some even offered to help with the labor this weekend of putting the floor down....some offered to watch kids, other offered to bring lunch to the workers..i mean, out of control God taking care of all the details...so awesome!

i will explain why the cat is out of the bag tonight. i have worried over our getting caught up in the presentation idea of it all, whether to surprise them, "while you were out" it, or even just bombard them saturday morning with a truck full of wood and helpers in their driveway and i really got convicted that it might be turning into more about our "thing" than the mission at hand...i also have watched amy over this past week and her struggles with grayson have gotten worse and his skin and his itching and his sleepless nights are at their worst....when i talked to her on the phone this evening, kenny had brought g to amy to show her his little bleeding hands from his gnawing and scratching, dripping with blood....she said it looked like a dog attacked him...she was crying, she was bandaging him up while on the phone, she sounded hopeless and defeated...she was telling me about how she is trying the new samples of special $$$$ formula and weaning him from breastfeeding and how hard that has been for her and she is so lost....

i got off the phone and told ian..."we have to go tonight and tell them our plan...tell them that there is hope around the corner, even as early as saturday morning, there is hope for little g in the awesome gift of this floor that so many have sent in money to help make possible. we decided that for sake of desperation and sheer sadness that they were experiencing we were willing to forgo the "surprise" while you were out makeover and let them in on it tonight...and we both really truly felt it important that they be in every detail of the planning and picking out of their own floor anyway and decide when and where and what day would work best for their family over bum-rushing and raiding their home at 7am on saturday.....ian had a inkling too that kenny would want to be involved in the labor part of his own floor too...and he was right.

so we wrapped a small sample of wood in paper and let them open it tonight at dinner...it got quiet, they were confused...at first with all the secrecy that thought we were trying to tell them that we were pregnant....but as ian explained why he was really measuring their house last week, they soon figured out what that small piece of wood represented....

hope.

a new clean surface for little g to crawl around on and peace of mind for amy and kenny...and a showing of how much they are loved by their friends and family...and a huge overwhleming outpouring of God's grace and power and His people.

i know some may be sad that we didn't drop the news the shock-n-awe way, but to see my sweet friend's eyes tear up with the possibility of healing for her son, to see the joy in her smile...to see the smirk in kenny's grin after we convinced him he couldn't take no for an answer....it was worth it....it was so worth it.

to see sweet baby gray smiling and laughing in his bathtub tonight, playing and enjoying his soothing excema treatment bath...i didn't care so much at the presentation, i was just happy to see that little guy smile...i want more of those days for him, for all of them.

come this saturday, that day is coming....hold on, g! it's coming!

we are still collecting should anyone feel led to give, or pray or want to help with the labor this weekend...just email me at redbyrd225@yahoo.com and thanks a million for those who have given so graciously already, may it's grace be returned to you tenfold.