Originally Posted on | October 6, 2008
Friday night I was at the hospital for one of John’s breathing episodes. The worst one I have witnessed. The doctor came by to check him out, but nothing seemed to be any different than it had been. So they just turned up the oxygen a bit and let him rest. The good thing about Friday is that he had been eating more from a bottle.
Then on Saturday, the feedings got better. Kelly, one of the nurses (who are just great by the way), and I were all able to get John to take over 30 ml from a bottle at different feedings (a meal is 80 ml of milk). Saturday was by far the best day he had had eating.
Then came Sunday. Actually our Sunday together began at midnight. I read John the Nicene Creed to help him know more about who he believes in. Then the next morning, Kelly, William, and I went to the early service at church, grabbed an early lunch, then headed to the hospital. We were there for the 1:30 and 4:30 feedings.
At 1:30, John took 20 ml. Not bad. Then at 4:30, John went to town. Kelly gave him 40 ml before she had to go pump. We were very excited because the most he had ever taken before at one sitting was 40 ml. Then I took a try. John took 40 ml more—he had taken his entire meal by bottle with no need for a tube at all! Needless to say, Kelly and I were (and are) very excited. And even as (or more) important, he did all this throughout the weekend without any breathing problems (since Friday night). We don’t think about breathing much, but at the NICU, breathing is a very big deal.
Kelly and I are very grateful for John’s progress and your prayers. As I have mentioned before, we truly believe that God answers all the prayers of His children. And we are certain that your prayers are playing a significant role in John’s progress—there is nothing like watching a 3 week old baby overcoming the fallen nature of this world by sucking and swallowing with some regularity for the first time to remind one of the efficacy of prayer.
But we know that the end goal of these prayers is not for John to take 80 ml at a sitting. Or even to return John to health. The goal is to glorify and enjoy God no matter how John progresses.
I had to remind myself of this as I was feeding John today. He had taken 75 ml, just 5 short of the whole meal. An amazing feat for our young son if he had stopped right there. Plus, 5 ml is not very much—they may not have even fed it to him via tube if he hadn’t taken it in the bottle. But for Kelly and I, that 5 ml would be a huge emotional milestone—a whole meal without the tube. I knew that all it would take was one more 15 second sucking splurge and that 5 ml would be gone. So the urge was to keep sticking that nipple in his mouth until that 5 ml was all gone—regardless. I had to fight not to turn that 5 ml into an idol.
I write this mostly to remind myself that one day all the email updates will have stopped and John will be who God will have him be. And perhaps that includes being perfectly healthy, perhaps not. But God will have been glorified and have answered our prayers in either case.
We do believe this, but it is hard at times to live it out. So as you pray for John and for his health to improve, please also pray that the faith of the Peacock family would remain strong. We desire to be as “the man who remains steadfast under trial” and “asks in faith,” rather than “the one who doubts [and] is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.” (James 1). No matter where this takes us, we truly do want to enjoy God and His blessings throughout this process. Your prayers will help us do this.
Things to pray for:
- Praise and thanksgiving to God for John’s 48+ hours without breathing challenges and his greatly improved ability to eat, including his first full feeding without a tube
- Strong faith for the Peacock family so that we would “keep ourselves from idols” and enjoy God’s blessings on us during this time.
- Continued improvement in eating and breathing and healing for John’s brain
- Continued health for John’s heart and hernia
- Wisdom for the doctors, nurses, technicians, and our family as we have a care conference sometime this week to see where we are and what the next steps might be