Today, I met Jennifer McKinney, better known in the blog world as MckMama, and her family, including her youngest son Stellan. Some would (will) wonder why I and dozens of other folks would go out in 45 degree weather — and in 45 degree RAINY weather, no less — to meet people “from the Internet.” Different people will have different answers to that question. Here’s mine.
In late July of 2008, I happened to see a comment on a post at Confessions of a CF Husband. A woman who went by MckMama commented, saying, in part, the following:
If you would pray for us, we recently found out our newest baby (I’m 23 weeks pregnant) has serious heart issues and I am going in today again to have his little thumper checked out.
That led me a post in which MckMama had a hand on her 23-weeks-pregnant belly. That post, called 23, baby!, mentioned that that she was going for her baby’s “first weekly heart check.” That same day she was admitted to the hospital, because her baby’s “thumper” wasn’t doing so well.
I’ve been reading the blog ever since, and I’ve blogged about Stellan a number of times. The first time was on August 3, 2008, when I encouraged all of you to pray for Stellan. She was still in the hospital and had been told that her baby wouldn’t live. He did. On October 29, 2008, he was born seemingly perfect. Four months later, the problem he had in the womb came back. In April, he had a procedure called an ablation to try to fix the problem. It didn’t work. Two Mondays ago, hours after he flat lined, he had the same procedure with a markedly different result. The problem was fixed, with only a 1% chance of the problem coming back. Ever. And this is just the short version of the story.
Through all that, I’d prayed. I’d worried. Truthfully, I sometimes got more emotionally over-wrought than I should have, considering this was a boy that I’d never met, and one that I might never meet.
But today? Today I held this boy. (I wish I’d given him a big hug, but I didn’t somehow.)
I hugged his mother.
I shook his father’s hand and talked with him a little about the miracle that is Stellan.
I watched their other kids eat and drink and be silly.
And I saw Stellan, precious Stellan, look at my husband and, absolutely fascinated by his beard, reach out and touch it.
My husband, who has probably never read Jennifer’s blog but who has heard countless stories — and who has asked me countless times, “How’s Stellan?” — got to see for himself that Stellan is very well indeed.
Stellan is an example of prayer answered. Parts of their life that they do not tell us much about are examples of prayers answered. Even with a different result from Stellan’s ablation a few weeks ago (even if he’d died), his life is still a miracle. Those are reasons enough to have wanted to meet this boy and his family.
It was very good indeed to meet these people that I’ve prayed for so much in the last 16 months. And to meet some of the hundreds of thousands of others (if not millions of others) who have done the same was pretty great, too.
I hope we’ll get to see each other again some time.
{ 13 comments }
Stumble It!