Our Brave Little Man (part 2) and Our Great Big God

From the Beginning

Back at the end of April Gideon had his first appointment at UVA Children’s Hospital. You can read more about his first visit here. At that visit we found out that Gideon would need to have his right kidney removed as well as a procedure done on his bladder to ensure that he would be able to totally empty his bladder. Gideon was supposed to have a follow-up appointment a month later, but UVA had to keep on rescheduling his appointments and he FINALLY was able to be seen on Wednesday!

A few friends had made comments to us like “wouldn’t be so cool if you went back and his kidney was functioning perfectly,” or “we are praying for complete healing.” Honestly, we never really thought to pray that God would heal him. We had just been praying that God would be with him and keep him safe throughout the surgeries. After our friends told us they would be praying that God would heal him we also started to pray that God would heal Gideon if that would bring Him the most glory. We prayed also though that if God would be glorified more through surgeries, that HIS will would be done.

Gideon’s Latest Appointment

So lets fast forward to Wednesday and I will give you the scoop on how God decided to work in Gideon’s little body!

Chandler’s mom was able to come up for the week so that both Chandler and I could go to the appointment. The girls were so excited to have a whole day with just their G-mama! At 6:30 am Chandler, Gideon and I made the almost 2 hr drive up to Charlottesville, VA. Gideon was not able to have a bottle after 3:30 am, but he was able to have a bottle of sugar water (which he downed much to my surprise!). This was in case they would need to sedate him during one of his tests. Much to our surprise, he was a very happy baby in the car and even slept over an hour. That in itself was a huge blessing.

Gideon’s first test was a nuclear medicine scan where they actually had to inject him with a radioactive solution to check the functionality of his kidneys. The hardest part about this was that he had to have an iv. They first tried putting the iv in his hand but it didn’t work, so they tried again in his foot, which worked much better! Gideon was such a trooper through it all, but he did shed his share of tears, which was really hard to watch!

Once everything was set with his iv and catheter (poor baby!) they moved us to another room for his scan. He was so tuckered out from everything that he slept through some of the scan, which was awesome because they didn’t have to sedate him!

Healing in an Unexpected Way

After the scan he had an ultrasound and then an appointment with the urologist. So, from the scan we were able to see right away that God did not choose to heal Gideon’s right kidney. I felt a little sad, but at the same time I knew that God was choosing to get glory out of this situation in another way! When the urologist was explaining all the results from the scan and ultrasound though it hit us that God DID choose to heal Gideon, but in a completely different way!

At our last appointment Gideon’s right kidney was there, small, functioning slightly, and covered with cysts. This time his kidney was GONE. This is actually the best case scenario!!! Sometimes when there is a small kidney like this after time they just get smaller and smaller and then no longer show up on the radar. Not only is the kidney gone, but his left kidney is functioning amazingly and has doubled in size…which is great because it shows us that it is over compensating for the lack of his other kidney. The best part of this is that Gideon WILL NOT have to have surgery now to remove his kidney! God is SO good!

Gideon will have to have a small procedure done for his badder, but thankfully this will only take about 10 minutes and can all be done laparoscopically! This will happen on October 1st!

We just wanted to say a BIG thank you to all of you who prayed for Gideon through all of this. It’s been awesome to see God at work in his little life. It has also been an awesome lesson for us that God indeed hears our prayers, but often answers in different ways. And this we know for sure, His was are so much better than our ways!

Large Obstacle to Tanzania Move Remains

This was a rather large obstacle that God chose to remove, but we still have one other obstacle that we ask you to pray with us about! Chandler graduated from Liberty University in 2010 not only with a diploma in his hand, but also with student dept (as so many college grads can identify with). Liberty just began a Loan Repayment Program which for alumni who are going in the mission field. Chandler was told to apply for this and was encouraged that there is no reason why he wouldn’t be approved – the awesome part is that it would cover the total amount of his loans.

With this hope, our family chose to move forward with the process of Partnership Development trusting that God was going to take care of these loans. After many long months of waiting, we recently found out that Chandler was not approved for the program. Although this did not come as a surprise to God, it certainly did to us.

It was tempting to want to give up and say, “well, God must be closing the door for us to go to Tanzania.” Yet we knew in our hearts this was not what God was doing. Rather, He was asking us to trust Him and be stretched more than ever before. And we are doing just that (although some days are harder than others.) Chandler will be re-applying for this program in the fall and we are praying that God would be at work. However, we are also aware that God may be choosing to eliminate this debt in a completely different way.

With all that to say, please be praying that God would show his greatness through all of this. We learned through our son that God will answer our prayers…but maybe in a way we would not expect. We were reminded last night that thousands of dollars to us is NOTHING to God. After all, HE is the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

Thank you for praying for us!

Together Making Him Known,

Jamie (for all the Sharpes)