The Malone Family

We are in the home stretch of this part of the journey.  Sunday will close the cover on a beautiful chapter in our lives at First Baptist Church of Moore, Oklahoma where I have served on staff since August 1, 1993.  I was 23 when I joined the team here and in many ways it seems like only yesterday (well..except that now we have nine kids).  I’m now 41 <gasp> so nearly half of my life has been lived here.  We were just kids when we came here and we literally grew up here.  We had nine kids here.  Most of the major milestones in our lives have happened while we were here (except birth, salvation, marriage and death (unless something is going to happen today at the office that I don’t know about..ha ha)).

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When everything is pleasant and bright
And the things we do turn out just right,
We feel without question that God is real,
For when we are happy, how good we feel…
But when the tides turn and gone is the song,
And misfortune comes and our plans go wrong,
Doubt creeps in and we start to wonder
And our thoughts about God are torn asunder–
For we feel deserted in time of deep stress,
Without God’s presence to assure us and bless…
And it is then when our senses are reeling
We realize clearly it’s Faith and not Feeling–
For it takes Great Faith to patiently wait,
Believing “God comes not too soon
and never too late.”

~Author Unknown 

We’ll update you later today on all that has gone on this week with Etha.

Well apparently, Ethan had not actually been using the bathroom to his full potential over that last couple of days!  :-)  This morning, he woke up with what one might call a “blow out.”  Then he had a couple of more pretty serious diapers today too.  

We had a scare with the catheter today too.  It was only hanging on by the tiniest piece of tape.  Obviously, if that comes out, it’s back to the ER to get another put in.  So we went into quick action to get that one secured.  So Mary ran by the pharmacy and grabbed some tape and brought him up here and I did a quick tape job on him right before church started.  I bet people had no idea I had just taped up a catheter right before I stepped on stage to lead worship.  Thankfully, we caught it before we lost it and had a problem on our hands.

Yesterday was a rough day for him, but today has been much better and we expect tomorrow to be better still.

It really has been amazing to watch him recover.

Friday night, when we brought him home, I wish I had had a camera to catch Micah’s reaction.  He was SO EXCITED (and I mean EXCITED!) to see Ethan.  He was screaming and jumping and laughing and made sure everyone knew he was home.  Then he ran up and hugged and hugged him and kissed him.  It really makes me wonder what exactly Micah thought had happened to him.  We had told him that Ethan was at the doctor, but of course, he doesn’t really know what that means.  I’d love to get in that boys mind sometimes.  Other times, I’m probably glad I don’t know what he’s thinking!   It was pretty awesome to see Micah’s genuine love for Ethan.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord.  From the rising of the sun, to the going down of the same.

We got home late evening on Friday.  Ethan had to come home with the catheter in, but he’s doing well otherwise.  His bowels are working great for now and he’s not in too much pain.  It’s obvious that he is still in pain because of his lethargy and not really wanting to do anything, but it’s minimal and seems to be controlled by tylenol (no narcotics).

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