Our journey has now arrived at five weeks into the life of Seton Blaine.  It has been engulfed in such an array of thoughts, feelings, and emotions.  The lows are seemingly endless while they’re upon us, but reality proves they last no more than hours at a time.  The highs are of immeasurable blessing to us and our family.  The beginning of every day and the end of every day are truly gifts…because they keep occurring.  We wake up and greet our boy each morning, and we kiss him before bed each night.  Treasure.

I am not a receiver.  I don’t like taking things from others.  I’m being taught many lessons during this season of life, and one of them is receiving with grace.  In the past two months, we’ve been honored to receive so many things from so many people – encouragement, words, prayers, meals, and so on.  It has not ceased, but this week we received two special gifts. 

Our nephew attends Windsor Elementary and one of his friends has been praying for Seton, which in itself is a testimony for Seton’s life.  He came up with an idea to setup a lemonade stand at school and donate the proceeds toward Seton’s medical bills.  He took the idea to the principal, and what they ended up with is a “hat day” where students could bring their pocket change in exchange for wearing a hat all day.  So what was the result of this?  Cash, checks, and change totaling $1700.  We were totally blown away.  What an amazing boy, family, and school.  It’s not about the money for us, and it really wasn’t about the money for him.  It is a heart affected; a heart stewarding for another.  Wow, God.

Sunday morning, everyone got up and celebrated Seton passing the one month mark.  Joining us in that celebration was someone we’d briefly met before whose heart also reached out to love us in a big way.  David Williams came to our home and took hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of my boy.  His work is remarkable, and he has a truly talented eye for capturing spirit -  http://www.davidwilliamsphotography.org/  Shawna and I are really excited to see the results and are so thankful.  We’ll be sure to share some with all of you.  P.S.  David is one of five photographers who have extended their services to us, so we'll be blessed with more to come.

Seton is doing pretty well right now.  Despite visiting the hospital two more times in the past week for continued feeding tube snafus, he is progressing.  His home health nurses carry on commenting on his progress between their visits.  At Dr. Habersang’s office today we were smitten to find out that he has passed the 6 pound mark we’ve been striving for and has grown another inch to 21 total now.  Small, continual miracles adding to the sum.  His breathing treatments continue to prove effective for keeping his lungs clear and healthy, and while Seton is still not swallowing adequately, the frequency of swallowing increases. 

It is so easy for us to overlook the small things on a day-to-day basis, but we must remove ourselves far enough to see the overall.  We remain hopeful and tenaciously persuaded to fight.  Grace, mercy, and love have gone before us each step.  We are blessed by God and blessed by each of you.  Please continue to pray for Seton’s healing and our rest and strength.

Zane

“Lord, my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me.” Psalms 30:2