10-28-26, Steven's Update

Below is a portion of my update that I sent to family and friends one year ago today, after Isobel's disastrous surgery on October 28th, 2025.

"I am believing for a miracle in Isobel!  There are many, many reasons why I believe this, but I do believe that Jesus is going to heal her.  He has shown up so many times in my life over the last 20 years, so why wouldn’t he do so again, especially after delivering her in such dramatic fashion 4 months ago?!  God has been faithful and gracious and merciful to me for so long, why would he stop now?

Very few people know this, but God has had me metaphorically walk alongside the edge of a cliff for most of the last 20 years in so many ways, where the only thing that I had was God to cling to, in order to make it through another day, but HE was all that I needed and he has shown up to reveal himself and his character to me seemingly countless times through it all.  As I have grown to know and understand who God is and what it means to love him and have faith in him, every time that it looked like I was about to step off the cliff and fall to my death, he saved me!  He swooped in and provided for me literally thousands of times.  So, although I’ve never physically seen God nor heard his audible voice, I’ve seen him manifest in so many ways, thousands of times when I was about to drown/fall.

When you live a life devoted to God (though I am NOT perfect by any stretch) and you need him to show up all the time, just in order to keep on breathing, as you trust him and do everything in your power to walk with him and be obedient to him, something amazing happens:  Jesus does, in fact, show up…, and frequently!  When he does, your faith can’t help but grow deeper and stronger with every miraculous, tangible, & palpable moment it happens.

This is where I find myself right now…, needing yet another miracle from the creator of all things as my baby girl lies in the bed before me, in very critical condition."

End of my text from Oct 28, 2025

That night, one year ago, when the doctors told us that they didn't believe that Isobel would live beyond 24-48 hours, all the reasons flashed through my mind and after 3-5 minutes of silence between my wife and I, that mosaic of thoughts and images all pointed to one thing: "The Lord is going to do a miracle here". There are literally a hundred or more reasons why I believed that then and still believe it now, but it has been an overwhelmingly difficult road these last 12 and really 16 months, since Isobel first had her AVM rupture.

My belief in her healing and in God has severely wavered at times over the past year and sometimes, in dark moments, I have honestly said to the Lord..., "forgive me for feeling this way, but I hate you." Continuing to just be honest here, oftentimes that has also come with yelling and swearing and severe anger. However, in those moments following my collapse, I also said..., "but I fear you more." So, what I wrote above one year ago today, even in my most difficult moments, has remained true throughout this terrible ordeal. So, as Delia mentioned the other day, my faith in God is now stronger than it's ever been, despite my deep suffering and pain. It's Not because I want to believe in him or want him to deliver Isobel by doing a miracle in her (though obviously I desperately want that), it's because I've just seen too much of God in my own life and my own walk to deny him, even in the face of him being seemingly aloof or worse yet, uncaring in the face of my daughter's impossibly difficult situation.

I don't understand why Isobel is still where she is, but one of the things that I believed early on in this process with Isobel was that God was going to reveal his Glory through Isobel's crises. I still believe that and I still believe that the Lord will heal her, but am taking one day at a time, doing all that I know and am able to do and then allowing him to do the rest. In his great Mercy, I know that he will when the timing is right.

God bless