Westin

Jesus looked at them and said, “With human beings this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."  Matthew 19:26 (NIV)

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Romans 12:12  (NIV)

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  Philippians 4:6 (NIV)
 
Today I will dedicate this post to a little fella named Westin.  I have never met Westin, but I have met his mother.  She was a high school cheerleader when Jay and I lived in Lawrenceville.  She was/is a beautiful girl and she ended up at SUI in Carbondale...and because we live in such a small world, she was a roommate to another beautiful gal that ended up marrying a friend of ours from Martinsville who now lives just through the woods from me.

So if you have followed that at all, Westin's momma is a very close friend of a friend.  Westin is a two-year- old little boy, who up until December of last year was a perfectly normal, active two-year-boy.  He developed a virus called HSV1 (common cold sore virus), which spread to his brain and they had been treating him for this virus and thought they had it under control.  He was progressing and they were hoping to insert a feeding tube so that he could go home where they hoped he would progress a little quicker.

Then in a blink of an eye, he started to regress.  He was taken back into the critical care unit of that hospital where he remained until they got his vitals under control, then moved back to the pediatric floor.  This poor little fella is now unable to respond to his parents, cannot eat, drink, walk, talk, and his body has taken on a condition which causes his body to have constant involuntary movements.  As you can imagine, this is extremely hard for his parents to understand, comprehend and watch.

Thankfully, Westin's parents are believers.  Their faith beams through the posts Andrea puts on Facebook.  They are thankful for the little boy they have been blessed with and have hope for his future.  It is times like these that we cling to our faith because we feel so helpless...they know that there is nothing else they can do except pray and ask God for understanding, strength, healing, comfort and wisdom.  They also have a newborn baby girl at home, which has to make the struggle to be in two places even more difficult.

Recent MRI results reveal there is brain damage in a few areas of his brain, which is heartbreaking to his parents and family, realizing that the Westin they knew a couple months ago may never be the same...but we know that God can remove that brain damage if it is Thy will.  Pray with me continuously that it is God's will for Westin to come through this struggle, that the medications given to him will ease the battle going on within his little body, that his parents will remain faithful to God and that the doctors and nurses will have the wisdom they need to treat this precious child of God.

As pointed out to me by a friend a few weeks ago, our children, although we like to believe they are "our's," are really God's children...just as we are.  We have our children only temporarily, until such time as God is ready for them to be called home.  It is hard to accept when terrible things happen to our children or family and it becomes easy to question God, but we must continue to understand that they (we) are His. 

If you are on Facebook and would like to be able to check the status of Westin, please search and ask to join Westin's Walk.