I’m not the type of person who chooses a word for the year or writes out New Year resolutions. I usually try to have a general focus for direction, some loose goals but it’s never very specific. As I look back on 2018 though, the word that shines brightly in my head is “dependence’. This has been a year of complete and total dependence for me. On God, on others, on myself. We welcomed Gideon into our family in January and before he was even born, it was a tornado of chaos with doctors and staff and a dire emergency situation with his birth. Immediately following, he was diagnosed with an emergent, life threatening heart condition and we were rushed to Seattle Childrens where he underwent his first open heart surgery at 5 days old. After over a week of laboring (not sleeping), then living in the hospital for a week, I came down with the flu. I had to go home alone, leaving him without me at the hosptial in the care of the physicians, his daddy and God. I was home sick for a week, alone, recovering from birth, the flu, his first week, a lot. I was in complete dependence of God for every breath. I poured over the scriptures during my days in the hospital speaking the Word of God over Gideon, praying endlessly with every breath for his life. I didn’t get to see my 3 big boys for 12 days. I’ve never been away from them for that long. Ever. They weren’t expecting that, I wasn’t expecting that, my parents and our friends who cared for them weren’t expecting that. I was totally dependent on everyone else to care for my kids for me while I was sick in isolation and Bo was at the hospital with Gideon. We spent almost a month there and came home. Started a new normal. A new routine with a medically fragile baby on a feeding pump, lots of medications, healing up from open heart surgery trying to get fat for his next open heart surgery, having therapy every week, homeschooling all 3 big brothers in 2 different co-op&
The Bradshaw Family Blog