Rejoicing !!

I have been sick and dragging for a week now. This morning I made myself get up. Along with getting up, I was online checking school closings. Not that school closings affect us. It is a balmy 65 degrees in our school today and we need not worry about wind chills or icy roads since we home school. But we do have outside activities that cancel based on the school districts around. Of course it is not just a quick check. 2 minutes ends up in 30 minutes and then an hour. Cleaning up email, cause I haven't read email in 2 days. Clicking onto facebook to get updates on the lives of those I love. One of those updates stirs my heart with such joy, I need to take a minute or two or three to share.
When I can't sleep I pray. Not feeling well much lately, my sleep has been affected at night most of the last week. I have prayed. The subject of many of these prayers have been a sweetheart of little girl named Bethany. Just over a year old. Just having learned to walk. After watching my 5 all go through the milestones, I can imagine her little toddler frankenstein walk and waddle. The joy on her face as she discovers all that she can get into. The stumbles and falls that come with this new ability. Then the heartbreak of seeing her momma's post. Sweet Bethany is in the Burn Center. Several phone calls crying with my friend, I have known since junior high. Knowing the agony of a mommma's broken heart and all I can do is cry with her. Wanting to swoop in and rescue them from it all and not being able to. There is only One who can do anything. He is with them all the time and I cry out to my Heavenly Father on their behalf. Sweet Bethany fell against the glass doors to their gas fireplace. Not into the flames, the glass door. She landed with her palms against the glass door. We know now, these glass doors can reach 250 degrees and hotter. A trip to the ER sends them to the Burn Center in another city. My friend is surrounded by pain and suffering. Her little princess is is agony, but she isn't the only one. Pain and tears like I cannot imagine from many more than just sweet Bethany, it is the burn center. I can only pray for comfort, peace and healing. Dressing changes, and more dressing changes. My friend learns how to change these dressings herself and they get to go home. Lots of back and forth to the burn center. Talk of surgery. Talk of skin grafts. More tears. More pain. More dressings. My friend sobs to me, "I just want my baby's hands back." How easily we take for granted that little chubby fist and its tight grip on our fingers. The joy of playing patty cake and clapping to music. The soft skin and feather touch as the little hand touches us. She may not have fingerprints. A little of humor as Bethany is still Bethany and proves she is still capable of getting into things. God's mercies are new every morning. And then, the dressings come off and no surgery, no skin grafts need to be done! What joy!! All I can say is praise God. Thank you God for healing her little hands. For sparing my friend the agony of her little princess going through surgeries and skin grafts. Lord, please be with the other little ones suffering in the burn unit. Comfort them. Heal them as well Lord.
In an effort to educate people about these fireplaces, my friend is joining with another of her friends, who is currently going through the same thing. They have started the Bethsiah Project. There is a link in the margin.