Little Warriors

I had every intention of sitting down and blogging today to update everyone on my little Sawyer who now has his full leg cast for his fractured tibia. I will give you a quick update, although the majority of this post will be about another little boy that has now touched my heart.

It's been a tough go for my little man, but last week we had a break through when on the second day of having his solid cast he learned how to crawl with it. He now flies around swinging it out beside him and is able to climb up a bench, pull himself to stand in his crib, and even get up the little slide we have in our playroom. He still has his bouts of extreme frustration because he isn't able to do everything he would like to do, but he is definitely being a little trooper! Much more smiles around the Hawthorne house. ☺

Well, my attention has quickly turned to another local family in need. My church sent out an email yesterday asking for prayer for a local family that belongs to another church in the area. They are the Ryska family of four, two boys one of them 2-year-old, Levi. Little Levi had been showing flu symptoms for about 10 days, complaining of headaches and throwing up. To make a not so long story even shorter, this little 2 year old boy was diagnosed just days ago on August 7th with a brain tumor behind his nose, around the optical nerve and pituitary gland and they are fast tracking him to surgery tomorrow.

They have created a blog for as many as possible to read and follow and to cover this little boy and his family in prayers and I want to do the same. www.lovinglevidaniel.blogspot.com is where you can find his story. I encourage you to check it out and keep this dear family in your prayers.

Reading the posts by this mother brings me right back to a few months ago hearing about a neighbor of mine that was dealing with her 16-month-old little love that was born with a heart condition HLHS and how the story immediately grabbed hold of my heart and to this day I still think about her, her little boy that is now in Heaven, and everyone that his little life touched. I know the fear I had just watching my little 16-month-old boy deal with getting x-rays and a cast and with this inconvenient lifestyle for about 5 weeks. A mother's love for their babies is just insane and getting the news that your baby has a brain tumor, or like my neighbor, had to undergo another procedure because of his heart condition is just unimaginable to most of us until you are in it. It puts things into perspective every time you click in on the blog... makes you feel incredibly, incredibly blessed for every day we have with our children and loved ones for that matter that are happy and healthy.

Interestingly enough on the same day I found out about little Levi, I found out that the family of the little boy who lost the battle with his heart condition not long ago is now giving back to the community in honor of their son's 2nd birthday coming up in October. It brought tears to my eyes to read her most recent blog post about this. Through all the grief that mother and her family have gone through they are now going to face this very difficult day that is approaching and in doing so, help out many other families that are in the very same position they were in by providing dinner and activities for the families staying at the Ronald McDonald House the evening of his birthday, October 24th. I'm now crying again just typing this. Ugh.. anyways, it touched my heart because this family stayed at that Ronald McDonald house for 68 days during their son's battle and now the family surrounding Levi will also be staying at this house as he goes into surgery tomorrow. Each and every one of those families in that House have their own story... It also touches me greatly because my uncle and aunt on the east coast spent many, many days in the Ronald McDonald house as my cousin, that also was born with a very scary heart condition and was not even expected to live to term underwent many surgeries and procedures over the span of his young life so far. You better believe I will be there Monday night, October 24th helping provide food and entertainment and showing love to these families. If you want to help, please don't hesitate to comment on this post or contact me.

You can visit the Facebook event by clicking below and also visit the family's blog for more information.

Giving Back In Honor Of Travis' 2nd Birthday

Dicarlo Family Updates

This past weekend at church we studied John chapter 9 where Jesus heals a man that has been blind since birth. For those not entirely familiar with this story, Jesus spoke to his disciples as they saw the blind man and the disciples had what I thought to be a fair question. In looking at this man that had been blind, they asked Jesus, who sinned that made this innocent man have to go through life without sight. I mean, maybe it's just me, but usually when things don't go as planned sometimes I can't help but think, is this God getting back at me.. did I do something to deserve this... or  think of it as "karma" in a way.  Although many things we do in life have consequences, there are many things that happen to us that are beyond our control. Jesus answered them by saying it was not the man or his parents that sinned. He was not born this way because of a consequence, but he was born this way so that God's work could be displayed in him. Jesus then went on to heal the blind man. No one had ever been healed from blindness. This miracle was one of many miracles that Jesus performed and many came and believed in Him.

I have all the trust and faith in the world that these little warriors have been born with a purpose. It was not by accident that they were born with these conditions and I truly feel that the Lord will use these little warriors for his glory. Travis' story has already touched an amazing amount of lives and it has only been a short time. The love that will be shown to all the families at the Ronald McDonald House in October will be just another blessing that his life is continuing to give to this world. I continue to pray for the DiCarlo family and now with little Levi heavy on my heart, my kids are about to wake up from their naps and I'm going to go hug my little girl and my little peg leg boy a little tighter and thank the Lord for their health. It truly is a gift. ♥