By 3pm we were driving to Plano Presby for a cat scan and spinal tap.  All I remember is the pediatrician telling me on the phone to get to the hospital immediately for testing.  I handed Isabella off to a neighbor as tears streamed down my face and I prepared to hide behind my sunglasses as Michael and Grayson picked me up in front of our house.  The next few hours would prove to be gut wrenching as the diagnosis unfolded.  "Your son has a brain tumor.  And it's in the worst possible place, the brain stem."   

Picture a computer when a storm strikes and it suddenly shuts down and goes black on the screen.  That's what happened with my body and spirit when I heard those words.  Everything went black in the room.  I thought, "Surely this is a bad dream and I will wake up any second."  But it was "real."  This was happening. 

Our lives were about to change forever.  I can remember the grip of my husband's hands on my shoulder and his brave, confident look as he said to me, "We can do this Christina.  God has given us an opportunity to shine, and he has entrusted us to walk through this with faith in him as the creator of this universe."  I must say I wasn't in the place where I could say I could see this turning out for good.  But it did turn out for good... in more ways than we had ever imagined. 

This morning, Michael and I sat across from a commercial real estate agent and a developer.  Our hope is to plant a church in or nearby the Addison area.  Nothing is set in stone at this point, but the initial introductions to the ideas and concept of a church being included in this area of the city were made. 

Michael and I then headed North to meet our banker to sign the papers for our Summit Life Church bank accounts.  And as I signed my name on each of those papers, I was speechless - something Michael rarely experiences!  My mind was recalling all that occurred 365 days ago.  How did a year go by?  How did my kids get so tall?  How did my youngest, Isabella get old enough to go to Kindergarten this morning?  How did God heal Grayson of 2 major surgeries completely removing a tumor from his delicate brain stem with no residual tumor being seen on the recent MRI's?  And honestly, did it really even happen?   

It seems so far away now because now is about building a church so that we can touch hearts, transform lives and teach people about and for the Kingdom.  Now is about signing papers and filing legal forms and getting on our faces to ask God what he would have us do next.  Now is about forming committees, board members, group leaders and a staff.  Now is about experiencing another miracle in our lives.  Now is about walking into our destiny.  Now is about Michael being the pastor of his own church in the Dallas area. 

365 days ago we were scared senseless.  And while I guess you could say we have days now that we are wondering how all this will unveil itself, we know without a shadow of a doubt that Super G's diagnosis and the months to follow were just preparation for the "now" in our lives.  It literally catapulted Michael into this next level of leadership and vision for the Kingdom of God. 

The miracle was around the corner for us in ways we could never have imagined.  Your trials will prove to be the same if you will lean on God and never let go.   

Summit Life Church...The adventure of transformed living starts here.  Perhaps we should think about changing the tag line because for us, the adventure of transformed living started 365 days ago!  

Standing in awe of His goodness, Christina

Send Michael an e-mail at- s
ummitlifechurchpastor@gmail.comFollow the adventure of launching Summit Life Church- www.summitlifechurch.com
Send Christina an e-mail at- cperron11@tx.rr.com
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Saturday, February 7, 2009 5:20 PM CST

Connor is slowly getting stronger day by day. He went to
school everyday this week, except for Monday, because he
had the 24 hour stomach virus. That was fun.

He had a follow-up appt with the surgeon Monday and we
have decided to keep the feeding tube in longer. He needs to
gain back 7 pounds and he cannot do that with the small
amount of food he can eat each day. He eats about 1/2 of
what he used to eat and he needs to eat double the amount of
food to gain back his weight.

Saturday, February 7, 2009 5:20 PM CST

Connor is slowly getting stronger day by day. He went to
school everyday this week, except for Monday, because he
had the 24 hour stomach virus. That was fun.

He had a follow-up appt with the surgeon Monday and we
have decided to keep the feeding tube in longer. He needs to
gain back 7 pounds and he cannot do that with the small
amount of food he can eat each day. He eats about 1/2 of
what he used to eat and he needs to eat double the amount of
food to gain back his weight.

It's been a while and I have a lot to tell.  I'll fill you in on Christmas today, and then a couple more blogs this week.  We had one last big lesson to learn before 2008 ended.

The Christmas season was magnificent.  It will be etched in our memories forever.  Everything felt different and looked different.  We worshiped differently, we loved others differently, we "believed" differently.  We are blessed in that we will never be the same after a crisis of this magnitude.   

Christmas morning was fun, to say the least.  At the top of Super G Man's Santa list was a Nerf gun super blaster; Ultimate Band for Nintendo and Wii; and a Havoc Heli laser bug battle-copter.  Santa certainly delivered and even left Super-G a note stating that he had heard of his surgery and his miraculous recovery.  Grayson lit up as he looked at the plate of goodies where the reindeer had taken a few bites of the carrots and noticed there was a HUGE bite taken out of the cookies.  There were crumbs everywhere!  The kid's faces were priceless....Santa marked his territory for sure!! 

We headed to Minnesota that afternoon to spend some much needed time in the frozen tundra where Michael's family lives. We were ready for cold and snow and a white Christmas.  We got that white Christmas.  There was plenty of snow on the ground and all through out dinner the kids had only one thing on their minds......playing in the snow!  Grandma was well prepared with new ski jackets, pants and gloves.  They looked like they were ready for the arctic! 
 

A couple of days later we headed for the "big hill" in Burnsville with Uncle Todd, Aunt Shanny and their cousin, "CC."  And this wasn't some old ordinary hill.  This was and will be remembered as the one that initiated mom into the "crash and burn into the bushes while sledding on a saucer" hill!  Needless to say, that was mom's "one and done" for the day!  But Super G, Isabella, and Dad flew down the hills numerous times before deciding to go in.  I sat there in total amazement of how just 8 weeks prior, Grayson was curled up on that hospital bed not even able to speak.  And here he was laughing and giggling and screaming, having the time of his life.  He got a little over zealous and wanted to go down alone, but that was not allowed!  He begged, pleaded and whined (not for long) until his dad got firm with him and reminded him that his head was still healing. 

The next day came and dad took the kids to a smaller hill down the road from Grandma and Grandpa's house.  I stayed back and caught up on my sleep!  They returned rosy cheeked with smiles from ear to ear.  Another successful sledding day.......or so we thought.

8am Tuesday, Grayson walks into our room and announces, "Mom, dad, the back of my head feels a little wobbly."  I looked at Michael and his face turned grey.  Grayson confessed that when he went down the hill "by himself" the day before, and "without a helmet" he spun out and knocked the back of his head after crashing through some bushes. (None of this had been mentioned to mom the day before.) 

So off we went to the emergency room.  5 hours later they released us.  They took a cat scan of his head to make sure there were no broken bones in the skull.  But they couldn't release us until they spoke to one of the surgeons in Dallas to confirm that the slight movement of the mid-line they were seeing in his cat scan was from his prior surgery and not the incident at hand. 

Michael felt so bad and I knew it.  No helmet and going down the hill by himself makes for a scary lesson to be learned.  The rest of the trip was spent making snowmen and snow angels....no danger in that!!  When we returned, I immediately took him to the eye doctor.  All was well with his eyes.  A big sigh of relief for us.  Michael called our surgeon and she laughed and called Grayson "a little snow monkey."  All she said was what we already knew to be true....."Next time he MUST have a helmet on!"

Life is about experiences and there are plenty of lessons to be learned along the way.  We realize we can't put him in a bubble for the rest of his life.  We pray that God will give us wisdom on how to live with this situation for the next 10 years.  We don't want to smother him with over protection (mom's tendency) and we don't want to act if everything is fine (Dad's tendency). 

Isn't it amazing how God can continue to teach us things in simple, daily decisions?  Tragedies and crisis are not necessary to learn lessons.  We are grateful that this lesson didn't cause any major damage to Grayson's head.  We believe the angels were certainly protecting Grayson, yet once again.  I would have to say that my verse for the year is this: 
                 "For He will command his angels concerning you guard against you in all your ways."   Psalm 91:11

Happy New Year!  I'll be back with a couple more stories about Grayson; the doors God has opened already in January; and of course an important prayer request for his next MRI, this coming Thursday, Jan. 29th.