My Sabbath - My Son

It is Friday again.  It is my Sabbath again.

It is gorgeous out.  A nice breeze, cool air, beautiful skies.  A day made for being outside and enjoying.  A drive to the nearby Abbey would be nice.  Dropping a blanket on the grass and reading scripture or some of my books for class, especially the social ministry books.

Instead today I am taking my oldest son (8 yrs next week) to the neurologist.  My son developed a facial tic over a year and a half ago.  It began as a blinking of the eyes.  Sometimes after the blinking he would stare into space and seem to be in his own world.  Not so unusual for him.  Sometimes that happens for him, he finds his own place to be in the midst of all the noise around him.  Through the course of the school year he seemed to do fine.  This summer the blinking increased to a full squeezing of his facial muscles from his eyes down to his mouth.  The doctor had said to observe him and if the tic did not go away and increased we should come back.  We went back and our doctor has advised going to see a pediatric neurologist. 

The first thing they thought this could develop into was turrets - but his tic seems to increase just in one place, not an adding of another physical or verbal tic.  So they have pretty much ruled that out.  The second worry is that he is having minor seizures.  Which might explain the onset of headaches he is having. 

He is not scared - he was so brave at the last appt. when they had to draw blood.  His courage is a wonderful example to me.  He is angry that he has to go to the doctor today and miss part of school, especially a friday at school.  I love that he hates to miss school, what a testimony to his teacher.

I opened my prayer book this morning, wanting to say an extra prayer for him and his doctors.  I opened up to a bookmarked spot for collects that I use for Morning Prayer.  The page that is bookmarked has the collect "For The Sick" and the bookmark - it is my son's picture!  One of my daughters had a school project to make a collage and she wanted pictures of each family member so we had printed a bunch of pictures and I had cut out a picture of my son, she didn't need this particular one and I used it as a bookmark in my prayerbook. 

Of course God would already know my prayers for my son.  Of course He would lead me straight to the prayer I needed this morning as I get ready to go:

"Heavenly Father, giver of life and health:  Comfort and relieve your sick servant, and give your power of healing to those who minister to their needs, that my son for whom my prayers are offered may be strengthened in his weakness and have confidence in your loving care; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen."

Amen.