The Gift of Hope

Hi again, life is going well here in the Luton household. girls are happy and doing well. Haddyn started walking just shy of 10 months! so it's pretty busy around this place. she just toddles around the house following her big sisters. it's pretty stinking cute. Anyway, I had been reflecting on some of the things the Lord has brought us through and felt like sharing one of my lows with you all in hopes that it might encourage someone out there who might be in a low right now.

Last July when Hallie was in the hospital with a brain bleed I had a glimpse into something I don't ever want to experience again; for a brief moment i lost my hope.
You see she had just gotten out of the hospital at the end of june for two brain bleeds that were caused by a head bump and then here we are a few weeks later when she is showing similar signs of a brain bleed. So in the middle of the night we rushed to the ER and they tell us she has another brain bleed, she had not hit her head this time and doctors were pretty much just thinking she had some condition where she was just going to have spontaneous bleeds in her brain now. (This thankfully ends up not being the case but we didn't know this until days later when we did an MRI which showed that she had two small strokes that bled versus just a spontaneous bleed.) Strokes we had dealt with before, but spontaneous brain bleeding scared the hope right out of me. Strokes are scary enough. So before i knew we were dealing with a stroke, the doctors pretty much took my hope away and were coming in saying there wasn't much to do, just make her comfortable so she wouldn't bleed more. I was in the room alone with her because we couldn't bring the baby into the ICU, so adam was in the waiting room with Haddyn. So i was listening to these doctors and became so overwhelmed because they had no idea what to do or why this was happening. One doctor even went as far as to say that he had operated on a patient with vasculitis (they thought hallie had this) before and that it was so bad that she died! i mean, what??? don't tell a mom that, seriously. i sat there and looked at my sleeping girl, and i just bawled like a baby. i lost my hope. it was a desolate place to be. adam wasn't in there to comfort me, hallie was on sleeping medicine. i was alone. or so i thought anyway. That's the thing about God, He's there even when we don't see Him. I knew I had to do something, i could not fight for my child's life from the bottom of a pit, i needed to be in a place of faith in order to get her through this. so i picked up my phone and through my tears i called my friend lindsey and said, "pray...i need you to pray for me, i am struggling...choke choke." so she hit me hard with some uplifting words and i started to feel like i could do this. Praise God for prayer warrior friends and family right? then a short while later, or at least i think it was a short while later, it might've been a day later, i can't remember. but the chaplain came into pray with me over hallie and she said someting during her prayer that switched my light back on. She said the word hope. I don't even remember the context of what she said, i just heard the word hope and felt such a peace flood my body. I knew in that moment that if i embraced the Hope that Jesus Christ so freely gives us, that all would be okay, no matter what the outcome was. This was a major turning point for Hallie and me. I began to pray from a place of hope rather than a place of fear. I knew Jesus was there and that He was in control. Hope is the gift God gave us to enable us to endure this life on earth. we live in a fallen world where there unfortunately is sin, sickness, and disease. however, we know the ending....victory through Jesus. "in this world you will have trouble,but take heart, i have overcome the world!"John 16:33. Hope is believing that God can and will make your circumstances better, whether He completely changes the circumstances or gives you the grace to walk through them. all things are possible with God. So Hallie began to show signs of improvement right away, i mean the surgeon even said, "the prayers must've worked". he had the OR booked and everything and hallie ended up not NEEDING ANY SURGERY this time. Praise the Lord! So she recovered and we brought our baby home again, we also brought home with us such a strong appreciation of the hope that God gives us through His Son; hope that Hallie will be completely healed, hope that in this world despite the trouble we might have, we can overcome the world with His help, Hope that He has our children in His hands, and that that's actually the safest place for them to be. So if anyone is in a place of hopelessness i would encourage you to hand your situation over to the Lord and give Him the reigns. Don't give up hope, believe that He can and will deliver you from or through your current circumstance. Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26
"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful." Hebrew 10:23

ok, hopefully soon i will upload some pics of my little monkeys, in the meantime thanks for letting me share my story with you!
Happy day to you!