prayer.

i have kept a journal since i can remember. sixth grade, maybe? i dunno. i've always loved to write. even if it's unimportant stuff. at the time, it was important to me.

i was looking back today through some stuff i had written right after pratt was born. i was reminded of how i felt that week he spent at the hospital. looking back on it, i'm not sure how we drove home on that monday when we left him. i remember only a few parts of it. but i had written down...word for word...what clint said to me. and today, i re-read it.

that week, i had never been closer to God. i was honestly in a state of constant prayer. every thought concerned pratt. and the nurses. and the doctors. and the other babies up there. i would see a commercial, and immediately think of him. it was like going through a break up. you know, when everything you see reminds you of the person. and all you want to do is call and just check on them. that's how it felt.

i would wake up at night and wonder if he was awake. wonder if sandy was with him if he was. i convinced myself that he never cried. convinced myself that he was pretty much in a drug-induced stupor the entire time he was there. someone told me to just think of it as him being at the babysitters. and that the babysitters were the most qualified, well payed ones he'd ever see. that helped...but only a little.

that week was the longest of my life. it really was. it was longer than the time i had chicken pox as a kid. i remember i was supposed to be in a play at school. i was the season spring. who knows? but i was. and i had this wonderful little headband thing made of flowers that i was going to get to wear. and every day i would wake and walk in my parents room, into my mom's bathroom...go up to her mirror. look in it. and every day it seemed that i had more pox. they were everywhere and i remember thinking they would take forever to go away.

i'd relive those chicken pox now. they don't seem so bad.

i know that the only thing that got us through that week was prayer. lots and lots and lots of it. from us. from you. from people i'll never meet. i am working on thank you notes, and have been keeping notes for pratt in his baby book until i am able to find him a box. i came across a note from camille helms at the first baptist church in camden. she had put pratt on a prayer list. and everyone praying for him had signed a sheet of paper. she sent it to us, and as i read over each name (for probably the 10th time last night) i cried. some of the names i recognized. others i didn't.

i wish that i had every name. i wish that i knew all the people who had prayed for us. i would seriously write thank you notes to each and every person. i am completely convinced that they are the reason we came home when we did...and they are the reason pratt is a healthy and happy boy today.

when he gets old enough, he will hear this story. and i hope that he will understand the love with which he was showered. i never want to show him the pictures from the hospital. i can't stand to look at them myself. but i promise to teach him the importance of prayer. and the importance of selflessness. and the importance of always putting God first, others second and himself third.

again, thank you to all of you who love us. we are such a lucky little family.