But the Helper, the Holy Spirit,

whom the Father

will send in My name,

He will teach you all things,

and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

Peace I leave with you;

my peace I give you.

I do not give to you

as the world gives.

Do not let your hearts be troubled

and do not be afraid.

John 14:26-27

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We leave for Lucile Packard Children's Hosptial in the morning. James will have 2 tests, administered by his VERY good GI doctors. One of them is a 24 hour test where he will have to first be sedated and then have a tube coming from his stomach, out his nose, and attached to a monitor for 24 hours, while he goes back to the hotel with me and "eats, drinks, plays, and sleeps normally" ... yeah, sure... and vomits normally.. haha!

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My hope for James this week is that he will be given an extra measure of COURAGE by our gracious Father, and that HIS peace, which truly does exceed our understanding, would rest on James. He becomes very out of control and hysterical at any type of medical type setting or someone having to touch him in an unfamiliar or uncomfortable way (even getting a bandaid or getting his hair rinsed at home!)

We have been talking and talking... endlessly... this past week leading up to our trip - about what it means to be brave, asking God to help him to be brave, how if he is brave, we will call daddy on his cell phone at work and he can say, "DADDY I WAS SO BRAVE! I DID NOT CRY! I LET THE DOCTOR DO WHAT SHE HAD TO DO! I DRANK THE WHITE JUICE. I LET THEM TAKE PICTURES OF MY TUMMY. I DID NOT PULL MY TUBES OUT!" and Daddy will be so proud of him....

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Pray that the HOLY SPIRIT, his HELPER, will "bring to remembrance all that I said" to him - that his "heart will not be troubled" and that he will "not be afraid."

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AND

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My second hope and prayer for James is that it will all be WORTH IT because they actually find out WHY he throws up every stinkin day, sometimes ALL stinkin day, and that they can actually DO something about it to make it STOP!

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And pray for strength for Mommy (me) because his hysteria makes me cringe inside, and i have been having mild tummy aches a lot lately, which MIGHT be in part caused by stress and anxiety about this trip, and life in general (the vomit every day). i just need to start feeling better if i'm going to handle the great challenges of the week ahead. Believe me, i would NOT be doing this if i thought i could live with the barf, because it's going to suck big time... but i just keep telling myself that the barf sucks way more, and that, although i'm VERY VERY VERY sceptical, there is a CHANCE that the doctors might have a treatment option for us that MIGHT actually work. I guess you could say that i actually still have a TINY glimmer of HOPE left in me...

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We also find out the decision on the interdistrict transfer this week....

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So PRAY for us!!!!