JOY Stories

Holly
God is Faithful in the Waiting
My name is Holly and I am the mother of Kinsey. Having a chronically ill child hadn’t crossed my mind when I was pregnant. I had two healthy sons and although pregnancy was sometimes a challenge, I had never considered my unborn child becoming chronically ill.
Kinsey was born at 35 weeks September 23, 2003. She was premature but otherwise healthy. At about eight months, we noticed her getting puffy around her face, feet, and hands. Labs revealed that her kidneys were not working properly. We were sent to a teaching hospital for evaluation.
Two weeks later, her kidneys had almost completely stopped filtering her blood and she was seizing. Eight weeks into her hospital stay, her doctors told us her kidneys and liver were failing, and her brain couldn’t regulate her temperature. Machines were keeping her alive and there was nothing else they could do.
All night long we held hands over our daughter and prayed for a miracle. God answered those prayers that night and within the next few days all issues would resolve except her kidneys. We now had a chronically ill child, doing dialysis for eleven and a half hours at night while she slept. She didn’t grow or reach the normal milestones that my other children did but she could make everyone smile. She developed other issues as cardiomyopathy, autism, bone disease and obstructive and restrictive lung disease. In 2015, she was blessed with a transplant. She thrived and grew for two and a half years, but her transplant failed and she had to go back on dialysis spending three and a half hours hooked to a machine three times a week.
We have lived 21 years with unknowns, and we still pray for healing. But what do you do in the waiting? It is a constant reliance and dependence on the only one who can see what the future holds and how it all works for HIS glory. Our story is one of GOD’s faithfulness, even when you don’t get everything you prayed for. GOD is still faithful. HE loves us and HE always does what is best. As long as HE is by our side, we will live the best life we can and glorify HIM and HE will calm the storm within us.
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