Love and Hope

As I was about to go to sleep I prayed for my Xander, I couldn't help but look at how handsome he is, despite his still swollen face. I am so thankful to have him here, he is such an example of strength to me, and he is only 5. As time goes on I continue to hear stories of how X has impacted people, of how people who normally don't pray are praying, and those who have not sought God for years are now looking again. I love that, I hope that one day he can look back and see how instrumental he was to God in drawing his people to his side. I am proud to be his father, to be able to raise him and watch him grow.


I cannot stop thinking about how much I love him, even now as I type this I stare at his beautiful face, and thank God for his blessing named Xander. This sweet boy, with a heart of gold makes me a better man; I strive for excellence in order for him to be the best. I try to keep his innocence as long as possible, that is why I try not to curse in front of him, why I talk about the goodness of God, why I try to watch wholesome TV around him, and listen to Christian radio with him; to preserve the innocence he came into the world with. Not too long from now I am going to be talking about how grown up he is; it was only yesterday that I held him in my arms, and fed him a bottle. I can vividly recall him crying in the night, and I can still see the look in his eyes when I rescued him from falling off of whatever object he had climbed.

This little boy will soon become a man, I am held to a promise I made to God to raise him correctly; I hope he is grateful for that, as I am to my dad. Mistakes will be made, but I pray I am quick to ask for forgiveness. I was so clueless to what I was signing up for when I wanted to have children, the love, joys, smiles, laughter, pains and heartaches, all of which I would never give up.

There is something about life lessons with children that help me understand the Father Heart of God; those of you that have been parents for a longer period of time know exactly what I am talking about. After having children of your own it helps you understand that if you are mad at God, you can yell and scream about it, because he is going to continue to love you. I can think of a handful of times where Xander would scream at me and the few times he told me he hated me. There was never one minute that my love waned; there was never one millisecond that I chose not to love him because he said hurtful things. It was actually the opposite, I wanted to love him more, and I wanted to make him feel my love. Sometimes when he is at his peak of anger, sobbing, yelling and kicking I softly start singing a song to him that I have sung since his birth. He starts to slow down and I start to rub his back; next thing you know I am holding him, whispering how much I love him, and he is calming down. It is in those moments that I realize how much more God must love us, he is a good God.

I thank him because I know that the very illustration described above has happened with me countless times. I am not worthy of a love that great, yet I am freely given it, and so much more. If my love for my 3 sons pales in comparison with the love our Lord has for us, I do not fully understand love. I cannot imagine anything greater, and I want to know more, I trust in God for this reason; I trust in him because of his love.

I have been asked in the past "If you had to pick one, who do you love more Xander, Zane or Israel?' I didn't answer, the way I explain my love is the way I heard a pastor explain his love for his children "I love them all like I love my fingers; I wouldn't want to live without one". Cheesy, yes, true, definitely. I guess what I am saying as I fall asleep is I love my boys, all of them, and I have this feeling like God is trying to teach me that he loves all of us so much deeper than we could possibly imagine. I am reminded of that every time I walk by a child in this hospital with a missing limb, or on chemo, and their parent is following them with a love and a pain in their eye. I want to tell them to hold onto hope, no matter how hard it seems hold on to.

If you want a direction to pray in, pray for hope. At times it seems as if hope is a lost cause here, a non-existent thing; pray that patients, parents, family and friends would feel the hope that is available. There are times I walk the halls and look into rooms and all I see is despair, fear or pain; rare are the times I see hope. I know from my time here that hope can be quickly lost, and hard to find when things go awry, so pray for hope. As always I am indebted to you all for your support in this time, and remember your prayers are not only affecting us, but a multitude of people as they hear X's story.

I couldn't help but take a photo to show you.