Lessons of Narcissim

When my wife and I had started our pre-marriage consoling, we learned in it the hierarchy of the spiritual family, and in that, we found that it would be very easy for a man to be domineering in a marriage. We have all seen it. But of course that isn’t the way God intended it to be, and I wholeheartedly believe it is wrong. But a person, a wife, should know the characteristics of abuse from a spouse, i.e. narcissism.

In that same vein, with the responsibility of a pastor, I can see how a man of God could let his responsibilities lead him to be a dictator type pastor. Which again, I feel is wrong. But the office of any authority is subject to that same temptation of becoming a dictator or very controlling. It’s a lot of power that only certain people can maintain without becoming domineering. But the ones that do get authoritarian dictator syndrome, they are in a very dangerous place, and recognizing those traits and control tactics are vital to saving yourself from a lot of pain and trouble.

It doesn’t come natural to most to be able to see those traits. Naivety is a big problem when it comes to recognizing a narcissist. I tend to be very naive when it comes to meeting new people. I ignorantly give them the benefit of the doubt and can’t immediately recognize when a contrary spirit walks in the room. But before long, I notice the subtlety of the enemy and their dirty spirit comes out, and then we have people like my dad, and Joy, and some pastors I’ve had. Customers we’ve had that have just out of nowhere said some off the wall put down and we are left standing there thinking “where in the world did that come from?” So we have learned to recognize those things a lot quicker. The enemy isn’t always screamingly obvious. He can literally transform himself into an angel of light.

When Joy had came in, I thought she was pretty nice. She was funny, and a little cussy, but a lot of people do that. Which I still don’t get how people go around cussing in public at businesses, but whatever. As soon as she left, Leah recognized the spirit in her and told me. Then low and behold the next day that ugly serpent came flying in my shop.

My grandma and grandpa died right before the shut down, my grandma had went in for hip surgery and she died in post op and my grandpa died 3 days later buying flowers for her funeral, so they ended up having a joined funeral, to which I was supposed to go to. Well, when my dad told me that Pawpaw had died, I figured everyone knew before me, because I wasn’t really included in much of their lives, and I prematurely posted on facebook to pray for my family because my Pawpaw had just died. Well my dad called me and yelled at me, typical. But after that he started texting me and putting me down. I’ve spent a lot of years identifying his traits and methods of control, and I wouldn’t let him do it. So every text he sent me, I sent him a Bible very back. Eventually he gave up. But it wasn’t before he had literally disowned me and cursed me with his witchcraft that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing with.

Then you cut them off. You have to. Even when they try and try to come back in your life for no reason, you have to ignore them. No matter how hard it is not to fire back to their fiery lie darts, you don’t.

Once you get those people away, you will notice a change in everything. But the more you come to the knowledge of identifying and exposing these spirits, the quicker they manifest. It won’t take long before you will walk up to anyone and know instantly. It’s pretty amazing.

I don’t know what makes people think they are in control. I don’t know what makes them think they can control another person that isn’t a child. It really freaks me out. I’ve seen pastors do it to saints. I am not talking about Apostolic only, I am talking about all kinds. I’ve seen teachers do it, I’ve seen parents and even children do it. It is no respecter of persons. I would say its 100% a pride issue, and we know that permeates all boundaries. I hope and pray if you find yourself in the presence of a narcissist that you can begin to learn and be aware of dangerous behavior.

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The Worst

I am. I think I have probably mentioned it quite a bit, but I am the worst at keeping up a blog. I haven’t written a post in a while, so this one may be long. I am not sure. My last post was December of 2019. Lol. I guess social media has taken precedence until as of late. Maybe not. Anyway, I digress.

There is an entire year of a pandemic that I could cover, which I may at a later date, but there is one thing I do need to address. I left off with my wife possibly having MS, to possibly not having MS, to having it, etc. Up until last Sunday, June 27, 2021, this has been our life. I wrote about it in October of 2019, but have since not updated it.

We basically spent the next year and a half going from doctor to doctor, specialist to specialist, city to city, prayer to prayer, with no luck. No relief. Spinal tap after spinal tap. Blood drawn, hospital stays, long trips, overnight stays, all for not. Even up until last Sunday, we had no answers. But God.

We were having a normal church service, but Leah and I were asked to open the service with a song. Then our pastors wife took over and we began to sing. We weren’t far into the singing when I hear a war cry, and look over and it is Leah. Right after that war cry, she began to dance and shout. Now, this may not seem that far out for us, but remember, this has been going on since 2019. Leah has lost mobility in her legs, constant seizures, driving privlidges taken away because of the seizures. I had to basically become 2 parents a lot of the time. Leah always pushed herself until she couldn’t anymore, way more than I think I could have.

I look over, and she is dancing and shouting and it hit me that it was the first time that I had seen her shout and dance in the duration of this sickness. I didn’t know why she was shouting, nor did I care, but I shout with her. Even if she could only shout for that moment, that alone was a miracle. We calm down a little and are off the platform and Leah testifies. She testifies that she has no pain anywhere. She could lift her left arm all the way up, which wasnt a possiblity. Her eye balls have constantly non-stop hurt this entire time and for the first time they didn’t hurt. Of course we all blew up!

So, you know how the enemy is. He creates doubt. So, I decided that everytime that came into my head I would rebuke it. Monday, she woke up, and felt fine. People texted and asked how she was doing, and I said healed! Tuesday, same thing. He we are a week later and she is still sympotom free! God is a miracle working God. Don’t give up.

Bitter Waters

Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? James 3:11

I am the worst when it comes to keeping up with a blog. But I mostly use it to get out my frustrations, or thoughts, that are bigger than social media. Or I just don’t want to cast my pearls before… swine. Life has a funny way of speeding you up and slowing you down. And sometimes, when you think you’ve attained a certain mountain, you’re kicked all the way down the mountain to the deepest pit you can imagine. Sounds great huh. So much for positive thinking! 🙂 Anyway, I decided that I was going to write a blog about this past year. Well, what has happened since the last time I posted in JANUARY OF 2019! The worst, I told you. If you don’t like reading, then you probably should skip over this post.

Ancestry

Around March of 2018, my wife bought an ancestry DNA kit. It came in the mail, and she was very excited. She spit in the tube (kinda weird) and sent it off. After what seemed like an eternity, she was able to see the results of who her father is (VERY long story behind that, but I will save that for another time). We finally received the results and it was exactly who (through other family members) thought it was. It wasn’t who she thought prior was her father, but this was the second option. She was able to get into contact with the man listed as her father, and began building a relationship with him via phone. Other people from her family knew this man prior to my wife being born, so we went forward with their great opinion of his reputation and decided to move to where he lived. One, we didn’t like where we lived (Southern Illinois) and two, she had always longed for a dad, and the man she thought was her dad died when she was 2, so I wasn’t going to stand in the way. We went carefully, prayerfully, and moved to Panama City, Florida, in May of 2018.

Churchish

I have been raised in and around church my whole life. I am Apostolic from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I guess I either missed something along the way or didn’t get taught it, but it did lead to major heartbreak and bitterness. I told some friends at the church we were attending that we would be moving to Florida soon, we just didn’t have a date yet. One of the friends asked if I had asked our pastor if it were okay to move. I responded with, “ask?” He informed me that there are people that don’t even buy a house before they ask him. This was the first time I had ever heard of this. I have moved, I have talked about with my pastor before, but I never knew to ask for permission. I told the friend that I hadn’t said anything to him yet because we didn’t know a date, and even in one day, things can change. So, with that conversation in the back of my mind, I messaged my pastor (we will call him PW) and told him that we were making plans to move. He said “are you kidding me?” I responded with “no.” His response was “give me a call when you get time.” I had time right then and called him. He asked me why were wanted to move. That was the only question. There wasn’t a “when” or a “where?” When I told him the reason, I became silent and listened to him rip me up one side and the other for 30 minutes and it ended with him hanging up on me. I never said a word. I listened. 

The next day, I messaged him and said that I didn’t want to leave on bad terms or with him mad at me. He then immediately called me and asked me if I thought he was tough on me. I responded with yes. He then informed me that he wasn’t even mad, to which I said “I’d really hate to see you mad.” After he hung up on me, I felt horrible. I didn’t really understand what was even going on. He told me that I didn’t need his permission, but I should have talked to him about it. I agreed and told him that I was going to once we had a plan, because we weren’t even sure if we could do it. Anyway, back to the second call. I had asked him if he would recommend a church where we were going and he told me he would not. He asked me “what would I tell the man of God there? I don’t have anything good to say about you.” This was a hard blow. I was involved in the church, paid my tithes, went to everything I could, went to PEAK conference as a chaperone, prayed, went to extra events and services at other churches, and I didn’t understand why he had no good thing to say about me. Until this point, this man acted like he was my best friend. He would call me and talk to me on the phone for over an hour at a time, pouring into me scripture and encouragement. This second call didn’t end with that low blow. No, he went on to tell me that my wife was rebellious, and she is rebellious because of me. (Us moving was apparently rebellion.) My wife had missed quite a bit of church because we had an infant, and lived 35 minutes from the church. Wednesday night church started at 7:30 and would be out after 9, sometimes 9:30 and we had to drive 40 minutes home, and Sunday started at 6 but would get out at 9 or so and it was too much for our infant. Long story short, we were both rebellious and he told us that if Jesus comes back, we won’t be going, and that this move will end in disaster (keep that fresh in your mind.) He never asked when or anything. He was done. So off we went to Florida.

Fast forward to October of 2018. We woke up one Monday with the idea that there may be a tropical storm brewing in the gulf. We lived less than half a mile from St. Andrew’s Bay in Panama City, and as this storm started developing we decided that we needed to evacuate because we had a 2 year old and didn’t want to chance anything at all, and it would give us a chance to see family that we hadn’t seen since May, which was way too long for me. We left on Monday night, with the intention of coming back on Friday. I called my work and told them and they didn’t even know a hurricane was coming. 

We got to Illinois on Tuesday morning. Wednesday, October 10, 2018, Hurricane Michael made land fall. We watched the hurricane on FOX News, only to see coverage of Panama City Beach, not of Panama City. We thought this strange, especially since we lived in the City side. Come to find out, the reason that there was no coverage of the city was that they were hit so bad that they couldn’t get any signals or anything to go out of the storm. Over the next couple days we were told that our town house was gone and we had nothing to return to. So we started making plans to stay. 

Through the grape vine, I got wind that the unnamed pastor that told us we weren’t rapture ready was telling everyone that his prophecy of our Florida move ending in disaster had came true. And also, that my wife is my pastor. He tells people that apparently on a regular basis. 

When we left for Florida, up until now, not one person has asked about us or called or anything. Which is fine, I don’t really care, and it makes it easier, but my thought is they know why we left, like so many others leave. 

I haven’t named the pastor, and some people, if anyone reads this, can figure out who the pastor is and what church. That’s fine if you do, fine if you don’t. So many Pentecostals will jump at the opportunity to say to not speak poorly of the anointed. I’m not going to go there with anyone. As much scripture there is for not speaking against God’s anointed (and in this case, that term is used very loosely) there is also as many scriptures about not ruling over God’s heritage and marking those that cause division. That is a debate that I don’t really feel is applicable here. Now that that is out of the way. 

I don’t believe in going around and telling people’s business or gossiping, but this entire post is about this event happening in my life. I am still Apostolic, and I know that just because someone is a pastor they aren’t perfect. I know many good people who have been hurt by unbiblical teaching and dictatorship. By the way, when a pastor says they aren’t a dictator, usually that means they really are in the form of narcissism.

The above encounter left me very bitter and confused. This man had shown interest in helping me grow my ministry. This man poured into me on a number of occasions. This man put me behind his pulpit to exhort. This man asked me to be in certain things. My respect for him was one I hadn’t really personally given a man of God, and I think the reason that I revered him so much was because he took time for me and acted like he was my friend. This was no small church. 200 or so members, and 100 additional children were bussed in on Sunday mornings. The services were hot, God moved in ways I haven’t experienced anywhere else. There was drama, of course, but I wasn’t there for that. My wife and I had visited OFTEN on a regular basis for 2 years prior to going there because they had people our age, married, that we could hang out with, as our other church didn’t. After the 2 phone conversations, I had told my brother in law, who was my previous pastor, and is now currently my pastor, what happened only to find out horrendous things. 

I received a phone call from the aforementioned pastor (PW) randomly one day. He was informing me that he had talked to my brother in law (PM) about another person that was bouncing between the two churches. He said that I had been brought up in the conversation and was talked about pretty harshly. After the proverbial lashing had happened, my brother in law told me how that conversation really went down. For the sake of my energy and time, it wasn’t good. It was more damage, and wood added to the fire. 

To The Bones

I had put so much faith and hope in this man, that when he failed, I was left wondering if God really was in Apostolic preachers anymore. I know that Apostolic doctrine is right, so I wasn’t interested in going to another kind of church, I just didn’t know if I could trust anyone else again. I questioned my ministry and my calling. I questioned if I was a reprobate or if God could even hear me. I was very wounded. And then came the question of how to get rid of the bitterness and distrust. I knew the scripture is against bitterness. 

But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Proverbs 5:4

I had tried so hard and put so much effort into doing what was right only to be let down. How could I trust anyone. 

Well, to their demise, they lost a lot of good people from their church. I had taken a friend to church that wasn’t Apostolic. He had went with me quite a few times and the Lord was moving on him. The pastors (PW) daughter thought he was good looking and wanted to get in contact with him. Well I knew better and I didn’t get her in contact with him but since he was tagged in some things on social media, it wasn’t too hard to get his info. She did. And she sent him vial snaps on Snapchat, things a Christian should never send. Later, she was a part of almost ruining a new converts marriage after being caught making out with the husband during our Easter drama practices. The pastor never did anything about it, tried to cover it up, and literally lost every minister on his platform except for two young ministers. I say that to say: don’t be a hypocrite! 

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Galatians 6:7

I don’t glory in the fact that this happened on any end. But I did come out stronger. I came out stronger in who I am in Christ, what the Bible says regarding abuse of power, and knowing that the Lord can keep you even when you are confused and groping in the darkness. My confidence in the ministry is being restored, with caution. But I will say this, no one under the sun can ever tell any human that they are going to hell. Yes, the word says certain things will send you there, but no one is allowed to tell me that my soul will be in hell for moving to another town. No body has that authority and scripture never gives anyone the authority to send someone to hell. 

Bitterness held me bound. Bound to doubt. Bound to pain. Bound to hopelessness. But God got me through it. If you are struggling with bitterness from a church hurt or any other thing, God can get you through it. It seems it isn’t overnight, but it will happen and He will restore to you the joy of your salvation!

A Baby Changes Everything

I am very behind on posting. We didn’t have a computer for a while, and I refuse to type on my iPad keyboard. It is just too tiny. I always want to blog more, but never do, but I am really working on changing that.

We found out last March, just at a year ago, that we were expecting and would be due in the beginning of November. We were very excited about that because we knew we wanted at least one child, and we didn’t want to wait long, as we are both getting long in the tooth. Just kidding, but we did start out later than most people do in Pentecost, so we didn’t want to wait much longer. Everyone asked if we were “trying” and our answer was that we weren’t preventing.

The pregnancy started out scary. A couple weeks after we found out, Leah had a massive blood clot, which scared us both. We found out that was nothing and the baby was healthy. Then a little while later she went through a couple days of not being able to feel the baby. But we found that it was ok. They hooked her up to a baby heart monitor, and there she was just beating away. Leah was very sick the entire pregnancy. I cleaned up beyond my share of vomit. We both wanted a girl so bad. And found out at 16 weeks that we were going to have a little girl. We wrestled with names for what seemed like days, which was probably one. We decided on Peytlee. A mixture of Peyton and Leah. But we couldn’t figure out a middle name, and we finally came up with Shay. Peytlee Shay.

Our due date comes and goes, and the doctor decides she wants to induce Leah. Her policy is that on the first pregnancy, she doesn’t induce before 42 weeks. A baby is supposed to be born at 40 weeks. Because of the impending Thanksgiving holiday, she decides that she will induce at exactly 41 weeks. We were excited about this, because our baby would be here for Thanksgiving.

We go into the hospital on November 14 at 8pm. We went out to eat before trying to kill time because we were so excited that we would have a baby by morning possibly. We both prayed a lot that day because we were both scared and Leah had just watched her sister have a baby 5 days before, so she was extra freaked out. We walked around the mall, and then finally went to the hospital. We both woke up at 6am that morning because we knew that that was the day our baby would be on her way.

We settle in to the hospital. They hook her up to all kinds of monitors and make her get in a gown. We had our own hand made hospital gown that she had received from a friend at the baby shower. She was glowing. We were so excited, and I was so afraid. I had prayed and prayed that nothing would happen to either of them. I knew God had a plan and had this in His hands.

They finally induce her. When they checked her dilation, it hurt her so much. Our nurse for the night was very young and very quiet. This was difficult for me because I need to know why it hurt, why she’s acting like this, I need to know everything and she just didn’t offer enough information. After a couple hours, the medicine works. She starts having contractions. But they weren’t your normal come and go contractions, it was just one big contaction that didn’t let up. I didn’t like seeing her in this much pain.

The night was so long. The baby’s heart rate continually dropped and they moved Leah in every position imaginable to get the baby off of the umbilical chord. Finally, after contracting for a while they ask Leah if she wants the epidural. We were told for 9 months that she couldn’t have the epidural until she had dilated to a 5, and she was only at a 2. Leah said yes, so we left the room and they gave her the epidural.

When we came back in she was resting and a little loopy. We had some fun with her, but the morning finally came and our doctor came in. The doctor broke her waters, only to find that she was meconium. That is when the baby uses the bathroom in the womb, which is common for a post term baby. The doctor at this time says that Leah is going to have to have an ASAP cesarean. They prep her for surgery and off we go.

We arrive at the OR and they take Leah in. I have to stay behind until she is all ready. What was probably 10 minutes seemed like an eternity. I didn’t like leaving her for that long. But they finally open the doors and let me in. It looks like something you’d see in a magazine or a movie. Exactly the way it is portrayed. Big lights and computers and people covered in OR suits. Facemasks. They take me to her head and have me sit by her. Her arms are tied down and a big curtain is right below her neck. It felt like an eternity to get the baby out. But she finally got out and they took her over to the baby table which was in our view. I was praying the whole time because it really freaked me out. I have a hard time with anything medical.

They usually have you to come over and look at the baby. But they were taking a long time. They stepped in front of her blocking our view of her, and I just knew something was wrong. They didn’t do a good enough job and I saw them pick up her arm and drop it completely limp. I heard them call for NICU respiratory and I just knew something had happened. So I began to plead the blood of Jesus over our baby. Finally they step aside after what seemed like years, and say that I can take a picture of her. They told us that because she was meconium that she wouldn’t cry when she was born so we never got to hear her. They taker her off to the NICU and we go to recovery.

The tube next to her is an intubation tube.

 

While we are in recovery, the NICU doctor comes in and tells us that our baby suffered a brain injury during birth and would be flown immediately to St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Of course, like any parent, we thought the worst and just kinda sat there stunned. We hadn’t had any sleep, Leah was medicated and exhausted, and we really just didn’t know what to ask or think or do. We were kind of talking to the nurses and they picked up on our confusion at this doctor. Because he was foreign, and English wasn’t his first language, we were misinformed. The nurse said that because she didn’t breathe for a while after birth, there is a chance that she could have brain damage. They would take her to SLCH and decide what to do from there because the hospital we were at didn’t have the capabilities to handle what could be in our near future.

While we were in the recovery room, they came and asked if I wanted to come to the NICU to see the baby. Of course I did. They told me to wash my hands for 3 minutes, which seemed like forever. I could see her the entire time I was washing my hands. I couldn’t wait to get over there to her. I finally was able to get to her and she had a CPAP attached to her and tubes everywhere. I just wanted to hold her so bad. I was staring at her crying when the nurse came over and started talking about her and congratulating me. She was doing this little stretch thing that until the nurse pointed it out, I didn’t know wasn’t normal. The nurse said that she keeps doing this and it is why they want to send her to SLCH. She was having seizures. So when the nurse walked away, I laid my hand on little tiny body and began to pray. I was sobbing and speaking in tongues. We had went through so much to get this far for her to have seizures and/or brain damage. I honestly didn’t know what to do but pray. I certainly didn’t know what to say in English. Romans 8:26 says that the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. I knew that through His Spirit, the perfect will of God would be done. I also knew that all things work for the good of them that love Him and are called according to His purpose. I didn’t care who heard me or what they thought. This was my baby. My promise. She would live!

I left and went back to the room where Leah had been set up. The doctors said that it would be about 30 minutes for the helicopter to get there, and that it would be about an hour for them to get her set up for transportation. They decided to let Leah go into the NICU to see Peytlee before she was airlifted to SLCH. They roll Leah into the NICU and hand her Peytlee. We were finally all together. We were a little family. Leah and I, exhausted and lost, cried.

The helicopter people arrived. I watched Peytlee the entire time that Leah held her. I didn’t want Leah to see her having those seizures. The helicopter nurses said that it would take about an hour to get her loaded and ready to go, and they would bring her by Leah’s room before she left.

They came by the room where some of the family was and our baby was in a little plastic box on a tiny little gurney. I kept my eyes are her the entire time. They finally wheeled her away and that was when I really broke down. About 10 minutes later, I could hear a helicopter and I turned around and the helicopter for SLCH was right above our room, we could see it.

Shortly after she left in the helicopter, I left too. They got there in about 30 minutes and called me. I wasn’t even out of our town yet. They said that she did great in the helicopter and that she didn’t have any more seizures.

The next 2 hours as I drove to St. Louis seemed like an all day trip. My exhaustion finally started to catch up with me and I had to pull over and walk around to wake back up. My sister met me at the hospital to see the baby. She was in St. Louis already at her fiancés house. I was so scared and nervous to see her. But I just had to get in that room.

This was her when I walked in. I immediately turned on the camera so Leah could see her and we stared at her and cried. Leah wanted so bad to be with her, which made things even more difficult. I hated being with out her.

The nodes attached to her head are to monitor her for seizures. The thing on her hand is where her IV is.

The next couple hours felt like days and days. We didn’t know if Leah was going to be able to come right away. After having a C-section, there are things the doctor wants you to do before you can leave, and those things to Leah seemed impossible. But she did it. She finally got to come the next night. After a grueling 2 hour drive she finally made it.

We spent a week in that hospital. It was a week of hell. They poked and prodded Peytlee, and as new parents, it was awful. We were set on breastfeeding Peytlee, but SLCH isn’t a hospital that really cares if you breastfeed or not, they just care if your baby lives or not. It made it difficult for Leah. We had already missed so much with her, holding her when she was born, doing skin to skin contact, all these things, and we weren’t going to budge on this one.

We went through a lot with the doctors at the hospital. But she was getting better and better. They put her through this hypothermic treatment that takes 72 hours to cool her core temperature to 92 degrees. After the 72 hours, they take 24 hours to warm her up slowly back to 98 degrees. Then after she is warmed up, they take her to do an MRI to see if she has any brain damage. The entire time she was “cooling” she was on morphine. We couldn’t do anything but hold her hand.

She was born on a Tuesday, which is when they started the treatment. She went for her MRI on a Saturday, which means we had to wait until Monday to get the results back. The results came back that she didn’t have any brain damage at all!

Monday night they put us in a family room at the hospital to try to adjust to having a baby and see how she would do away from the NICU and the babies and nurses. We didn’t sleep one wink that night. The nurse came in every so often, and we couldn’t leave her alone in the crib, so we stayed up all night. Right before this all happened, they had taken her off of all the IV’s except the glucose drip, that they moved from her belly button to her hand. That process took them over an hour and a half and when we got back in the room, her had had been punctured over 40 times to drain fluid. We were pretty upset over that.

They had her weighed in at 8.2 when she arrived at SLCH. She was weighed at birth at 7.14 and when they told us that she had to weigh her arrival weight before she could leave, we asked how in the world did they get 8.2. That is such a big leap from the 30 minutes before she arrived at weighing 7.14. They told us that it was because she was weighed with the helicopter gear on. Knowing that wasn’t her true weight, they kept telling us that she had to weigh that before they would allow her to leave.

Tuesday morning rolled around and we decided that we wanted to go home. Leah was afraid to go home because they weren’t wanting us to go home and she was afraid that something would go wrong and we may not be ready. I told her that I would tell them that we want to go home, but they are going to make us feel absolutely horrible. I told her to expect the worst. So, we told them we were going home, and they tried to guilt trip us into staying including being responsible for the $20,000 hospital stay bill. They asked us to stay one more night and we said that we would talk about it. We did, and decided that we were leaving on that day. The doctor was furious and said that in the 25 years of being a doctor, not one single person had went against his medical advice. I said, well we are. He left in a huff, and came back in a little while later and said that he really didn’t want us to be responsible for a $20,000 medical bill that they would go a head and release us. Leah had called our pastor, which is her brother, and told her the situation, and he prayed about it, had peace and said that it is up to her, that she is the mother. I had peace about it, and even though that doctor told us that we would be spending Thanksgiving in the PICU because she would be dehydrated, we believed the report of the Lord. So, they started the discharge process, and we waited on pins and needles to leave. We couldn’t wait to get home!

This was her going home outfit. We were so proud and couldn’t wait to leave. We told everyone we were coming home.

The first time Leah held Peytlee

The first time I held Peytlee

Peytlee has been to SLCH for an MRI and they took one look at her and decided she didn’t need an MRI, that she was perfect. She has surpassed all her milestones and impressed every doctor she has seen. When God does a work, He does it right. There is no guestwork in His medical practice. To God be all of the glory for healing our baby girl.

We found out when we were discharged that Peytlee didn’t breathe for 6 minutes after life and that they tried to intubate her at 4 minutes and it was unsuccessful. Her blood was very acidic which caused worry, and usually happens when no oxygen is present. But she came out gold!