October 17, 2019

Our family has been through a lot in the last few weeks.

I don’t say that lightly or to put our situation on any sort of soap box.

I know it could be worse

I know there are families who have it harder

I know because we’re all uniquely different something that may be difficult for me may not be difficult for you.

We’ve had confident days and concerning ones. 

The days where we’ve felt favor and blessings and the days where we’re unsure of what we’re waking up to. Some days we would rather go back to sleep than face the realities in front of us and other days we’re sure we will see God’s faithfulness and goodness. 

The more we get to know God the more we’re confident that both days are necessary and connected. When you know God, you understand that without death there would be no resurrection. Without the resurrection there is loss, sadness, mourning and bondage. But it pretty much stops there.

When Jesus rose we gained 

Inheritance

Freedom

Joy

Peace

Victory 

And 

Death was overcome. 

You can’t walk with Jesus and ignore the bad days or the good ones. 

Today we woke up with hesitation, we spent the day with heavy hearts and we were hopeful for good news but expectant for bad news. 

I feel like the longer we’re here the more we’ve begun to prepare our hearts for heartbreak and sadness. 

Slightly after 4pm our doctor came in REJOICING over the biopsy results from todays bone marrow. 

I’ll spare you the long details but to give you the skinny; they classify bone marrow results into 3 categories M1 M2 or M3. M3 means you have 25% or more leukemia cells remaining in your body. After seeing blast cells in Colton’s blood this past week the doctors were concerned that this may be the results from the bone marrow today in which we would have to act immediately and consider other forms of treatment because in short: M3 typically means the chemotherapy didn’t work on his body. 

Colton is in M1, the lowest category with 1-3% leukemia remaining in his body.

Our God is the God of miracles.

We’ve had to dig deep in finding ways to celebrate in the last 6 weeks. We’ve danced over Colton eating crackers and being able to pick his head up or seeing him interested in playing with toys. But to be honest, the majority of the news we’ve gotten has been disheartening .

Tonight, WE ARE CELEBRATING HARD that our God is the God of miracles.

He is not limited.

He is here.

He is compassionate.

He is full of mercy.

All of our days are necessary.

The hard ones and the easy ones.

We’ve had our share of both.

Ones full of sorrow and ones full of joy.

And in the messy middle, He is with us. Able and ready.

As of this morning, Colton’s blood counts have completely recovered and he will begin his next 6 week block of chemotherapy on Saturday. 

Please continue to pray for miracles and for Jesus to be gloried in the midst of it.

xx,

The Dietrichs