Now What.

Consider it pure joy, whenever you face trials of many kids, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. -- James 1:2,3

This is tough. There's no gentler way to say it. It's been about 19 hours since Luke was born and Hillary and I will be heading to bed in a still empty hospital room. Down the hall we can hear the cries of babies and would love nothing more than to have our own kid's wails wake us up at 3 in the morning.

At 4pm this afternoon we headed over to see Luke again and spend some quality time there, but he was in the middle of having a PIC line inserted so he could be given more nutrients and carbs. All we could see around his little bed were a few nurses in blue scrubs.

Tonight around 10 we called the NICU to see if we could stop in and were told that the PIC line didn't take and after waiting a few hours, they were about to try again. So we'll wait until the morning and go from there. In our baby's first day of life, we've seen him for a total of 45 minutes.

It's a cliche to say that we don't understand what God's larger plan is for all of this. But like the verse at the top, we do have faith that one of the end results will be a strength and perseverance we wouldn't have had otherwise. No one wins $10 million and grows closer to God. You grow through trials, through putting your faith to the test and coming out better on the other side. And funny enough, that relationship between God and us is paralleled in our relationship with Luke. There he sits getting poked and prodded, and obviously can't begin to know what's going on or why. But we know those tubes and sensors and messed up PIC lines are steps along the way to making him stronger. They're hurdles that will ultimately give him the best chance to persevere and live a full life.

For now, I think our goal is just to have that same child-like faith. Someone bigger and stronger is in charge. The best thing we can do is just close our eyes and trust him.