Hey everyone,

Thank you for all of your prayers and support this semester. I have officially finished my last paper for this semester and it feels good. Emily graduated from college a few weeks ago and she is officially done with school… foreverrrrr!!!! Also I am being interviewed for a few jobs. Tomorrow we will be at a church in Florida for two days to see if it would be a good fit for us. So please keep praying for us in the search for a job post seminary and thank you for all the prayers so far.

Now here is the hard news. Emily and I about two weeks ago found out that our little baby girl is not developing correctly. Everything about her is perfect from her feet to her neck. The problem is with her face and with her brain. She has a cleft in her face from the front of her lip up through her nose and the frontal lobe of her brain is developing slowly. The doctors don’t really know what is going on and there has been zero answers for any of our questions. The doctors feel confident that our little girl will make it full term but they are unsure about whether or not she will live post-birth and if she lives post-birth they are unsure what her quality of life will be.

We are unnerved, crushed, heart-broken, angry, sad, lost and confused. Emily and I have experienced a wide range of emotions over the past two weeks and we are completely lost in knowing what to do. So right now we are waiting and sitting in this mess of uncertainty with deep fears, worries and hurt. We don’t know what to do, we don’t know what to feel and we don’t know what to say. In a lot of ways we feel like something has died and we feel like we are grieving the lost of our little girl even though she is still alive and kicking inside her mommy’s tummy (confusing right???). But one thing that has been so good over the past two weeks is that we have not once felt alone. There has not been a point in this whole process where we have felt lonely and unsupported. The doctors that we have around us are great, the friends that we have are great and the families that we have are great and you guys are great.

So we need you guys to pray for us and to pray for a our little girl. Emily and I are struggling to have faith and to believe that God loves our little girl and that God is good and just and faithful. We kind of feel like God is out to get us and that he is punishing us (we know this isn’t true but it is how we feel). We don’t know if we can trust him and count on him since he is the one knitting our little girl in the womb and we have no idea why he is doing this to her and to us. So we are sitting and waiting in this confusing mess and we are asking you guys to sit with us and wait with us and pray on our behalf for we are very very weak. We have no idea if our little girl is going to make it and we have no idea if we are going to make it, but right now our little girl is here and we are here and I want to share with you guys where we are at.

Please walk with us through this time and please pray for Emily and I and for our little girl’s health. Pray that her face will heal and that her brain will catch up and develop. Pray for a miracle – I have so many doubts about miracles but I need those who have faith to pray for them. Pray that God will do a miracle with my little girl. But please pray that she lives and pray for our faith. Pray that we may find our Savior in this mess – we are looking for him. Pray that he will be glorified.

I don’t know why God is putting Emily and I through this and I don’t want to be going through this, but he is King and we are at his mercy (I write this with clinched fists and gritted teeth thinking “How can he be doing this to me!”). Pray that I humble myself before God and that I give him my little girl. I feel like she is mine and I don’t want God to take her from me. Pray that I can surrender because right now I do not want to give her up to God because I am scared what he might choose to do to her and to me.

Your brother in Christ,

Mikey

Pray:

(1) Find a job

(2) Health for Emily and our little girl

(3) A miracle for our little girl

(4) God’s glory to be known

(5) Our faith in God and for our hearts to be softened