More reasons to celebrate

Our family has more reasons to celebrate and praise our awesome God than just birthday celebrations. On April 22, our precious baby boy, Noah, fell out of his carrier and onto the concrete on our front porch. Of course he did not do this on his own, but by the complete accident of Mommy. He was not buckled in and as I leaned over to pick something up, he fell out. This is honestly the most horrible feeling that I have had in my entire life. First of all, it is a horrible feeling when your 3 month old baby is in pain, but to know that, accident or not, you caused the pain - there are no words to describe. There are only so many times you can apologize and ask for forgiveness - and Satan definitely took advantage of my weak state of mind, and guilt consumed me.

Well, somehow I made it safely with both boys to the ER where they did a CT scan. The scan showed that he had a considerable sized skull fracture. While this sounded like the end of the world to me, the doctor explained that this was the best case scenario, since there was no bleeding. Praise the Lord there was no bleeding! Still a skull fracture is very serious, so they transported him by ambulance to a children's hospital in Shreveport, LA where he spent the night in the children's ICU.

Noah was so covered with prayer during this time. We must have received 50 text messages, some we still don't know who they were from. We also received calls and visits, and were put on so many prayer lists. We received an email later on from someone we have never met from a church we have never attended, telling us of her prayers and concern for Noah. Our small group met that night for a prayer time to lift up Noah's healing and our pastors came immediatley to the hospital to pray over us and take care of Zack. I say all of this not to brag, but to give a testimony of the AMAZING power and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and also the importance of belonging to the body of Christ. I don't even want to think about going through this tragedy without God and His people.

Well, God protected Noah through the night, and the next morning we were discharged from the hospital with a wonderful prognosis. The doctor said that he was fine and that he would not have any long term effects from the fracture. We couldn't even tell if he was in pain or not since he woke up smiling and laughing (well, he did have some pretty strong pain meds!!). We were home that afternoon, and he has been doing so well since then. I must say that Mommy has had to heal as well. Like I mentioned earlier, I was dealing with guilt, as well as insecurities in taking care of my children by myself. BUT - once again through the power of prayer and God's mercy, I have kicked the guilt and insecurity out of my life, and I am just counting my blessings instead of dwelling on what happened. Thank you for listening to this long story - it was actually very theraputic for me.

I just want to share a few more things with you that I have learned:

1. Accidents happen.

2. I have an amazing and forgiving husband whom I love with all my heart.

3. That I am thankful this happened when Noah was young enough to not remember!

4. That someday we can tell him when he is acting strange - it's ok - you were dropped on your head when you were a baby!!!

5. that I have the most amazing friends and family - you really realize how amazing they are when you are in crisis.

6. and most importantly - that we serve an awesome God!! To Him be all the Glory and Praise!

oh, and how could I forget - ALWAYS buckle your child into their carseat!!! Here are a few pictures of the little man in the hospital.