9/23

I'll begin with a verse:

"For this reason also, since the day we heard about Eden, we have not ceased praying for her and to ask that she may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that Eden will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience joyously giving thanks to the Father." Colossians 1:9-12

Many of you received our email a month ago regarding our baby girl Eden. This past Monday, we had our follow-up visit at Duke and we received some hard news. Eden has been diagnosed with Dandy-Walker syndrome. I could go into a long explaination of how they got to that and what it means "medically", but I dont even know where to begin - I'm still trying to understand it myself. I will say that it is a malformation of the ventricles in her brain and also includes a cyst on the back of her cerebellum. This can mean a wide spectrum of things for her and at this point, no one can tell us how "affected" she might be by all of it.

We have been doing alot of praying the past few weeks and God is reminding me daily that the need to pray for my child will NEVER cease. I am so thankful that He has reminded me of this early. With news that there may be something malformed in her brain, it causes me to fear that she may never know the Lord. However, praise God that He has given me numerous Scriptures to claim regarding God's desire for all men to KNOW Him. I know that God hears prayers and I believe that He is able to completely able heal Eden. However - I also want to accept whatever He sees perfect for Josh and I's life and for Eden's life. As much as I want to pray for perfection in a medical sense, I don't see anywhere in Scripture that God promises that. Yes - He does answer those prayers, but it is not always His will for us. There are many promises however that reinstate God's desire for us to KNOW Him and UNDERSTAND Him. This is our Prayer for Eden - that no matter how He has formed her in my womb, He would mold her MIND in a way that she will KNOW Him one day as her Savior. We continue to pray for healing, knowing that He is able, yet understanding that His ways are not always what we see as best.

So we will continue to send out emails as we know more and let you know how to specifically pray - but as always, we continue to ask for prayers for her mind and that she will come to KNOW the Lord one day. We have two appts tomorrow - one with the Pediatric Cardiologist (hopefully our last) and my regular OB appt. Please pray that everything is going well. We will also be traveling home next week (yaahhhh!!) - please pray for a time of refreshment and rejoicing with family and friends.

I have also attached a link at the bottom for those of you who would like to know more about Dandy-Walker. This is a link that the doctor gave me, so I know it is reputable. Please be advised (as I was in the doctors office) that if you do a search, you will most likely find the "worse case senerios". We have done some searching ourselves, just to make ourselves informed, but we dont want to be discouraged by these stories either, because we know that our God is Good and we will continue to trust Him.

Thanks again for all your prayers. We have been greatly encouraged this week!

Steph, Josh and Eden Carroll

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/dandywalker/dandywalker.htm