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They’ve decided to delay Noah’s next chemo treatment until tomorrow. From the way I understand it, evidently not enough time has passed since his last chemo treatment, so that’s why they wanted to push it back a day. We’re discovering that this whole process is pretty fluid. It sounds like tomorrow will be a fairly long day for Noah, as he’ll probably be at the hospital from about 9 a.m. until about 4 p.m.
Also, it looks like next Friday is the day for his MRD test. That’s the big one that gives us some early indication as to how he’s responding to treatment. We’re hoping for an MRD below 1 percent, which will keep him in the low risk group. We’re praying for an MRD of less than .01 percent.
Noah was discharged from inpatient care at St. Jude this evening (he’s waving goodbye in the photo). He’s had a great couple of days, showing no ill effects from his treatment. He, Sarah and Sarah’s mother will be staying at the Ronald McDonald House across the street from the hospital the next couple of days while Daniel, Emmalee and I are back in Jackson. On Friday, we’ll move to the Habitat for Hope home in Millington.
I talked to Noah on the phone tonight, and he was ecstatic about being at Ronald McDonald. He had played air hockey, Pac Man and pool in the game room and was simply tickled about it.
He’s scheduled for another round of chemo tomorrow. We’d appreciate your prayers that the side effects would be minimal.
One of the verses I’m clinging to these days:
“But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.” (Genesis 6:8)
We’re praying that like the Noah of old, our Noah would also find favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Today was somewhat of a mixed bag for Noah. He had a good night last night, an OK morning and a rough afternoon. His head, stomach and legs all hurt, and it was clear that he was pretty miserable. But after a late afternoon napped, Noah rallied considerably. He played with Daniel and Emmalee for a while and was laughing and cheerful when I left the hospital to come back home for the night. A little later, he felt well enough to walk down the hall to do some crafts with volunteers who came to work with the kids (that’s what he’s doing in the picture).
He also ate well tonight for the first time in a long, long time. We’re hoping he keeps it down, especially since he has an MRI scheduled for noon tomorrow and can’t have anything to eat or drink after midnight tonight.
We’re expecting to be discharged in the next day or so as long as the MRI comes back OK.
Some specific prayer requests:
1. Pray that Noah is able to keep his food down tonight, and that he won’t get overly hungry before his MRI tomorrow.
2. Pray that his MRI shows that the fluid sac previously around his spine has healed, and that Noah will be well enough to be discharged soon. Tonight will be the 11th night for him to be in the hospital, and I think getting out should lift his spirits.
3. You can start praying now for the bone marrow test that Noah will have on day 15 of his treatment. This is a huge deal. Huge. We need the MRD (minimal residual disease) from this test to come back negative. This is the first indicator of how well Noah is responding to the chemo. Less than 1 percent is desirable, but we’re praying for less than .01 percent. Anything at less than 1 percent will keep Noah in the low-risk group, and that obviously would make us feel a lot better.
Many, many thanks for your continued prayers.
Several people have asked where they can send Noah some mail. Here’s the address you can use:
Noah Ellsworth
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
262 Danny Thomas Place
Memphis, TN 38105-3678
First, a bit of background. I’ve been posting updates on Facebook but am planning to start writing here instead. Our 5-year-old son Noah was admitted to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital on Jan. 10. On Jan. 13, he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. You can read a little more about all of that here.
Yesterday Noah got his second chemo treatment. He threw up a few times yesterday morning and then again once last night. His stomach is still a bit queasy this morning, but he seems to be pretty cheerful today. We are continuing to pray that the chemo would quickly and successfully attack the cancer in his body and that the side effects would be minimal.
We don’t know when we’ll be discharged at this point, and honestly, I don’t think we’re in a great rush for that. Noah is getting excellent care here at St. Jude, and we continue to be thankful for all of his doctors and nurses.
We decided yesterday that when we are discharged, our family will spend the next few weeks living at a home provided by Habitat for Hope. Though St. Jude has graciously offered for us to stay at the Ronald McDonald House nearby, they only allow four people to stay in a room. With five of us, plus Sarah’s mother who will stay with us much of the time, that wasn’t a viable option for us.
Enter Habitat for Hope, a ministry to cancer patients and their families. They have a house near Millington (only about 20 minutes from St. Jude), located on a gorgeous setting of about 50 acres. We’ll be staying in a basement apartment of the house. The caretakers of the home are parents of a child with ALL, so they understand what we’re going through. Their children are similar in age to ours. Our children are ecstatic about staying at a place with horses and with all the other amenities that come with 50 acres of land on which to play.
This was indeed an answer to prayer for us. A huge “thank you” to all who referred us to Habitat for Hope, to the organization for providing us with this housing opportunity, and to several other places nearby that also offered us housing. We are incredibly grateful for the ways we’ve been loved by so many people during this time.
Dear Noah: My prayer for you on your 5th birthday
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Dear Noah,
A long time ago lived a man who wanted to obey God more than anything else. Obeying God was more important than his status in society. It was more important than his reputation. It was more important than his pride. It was more important than his friends and family. To the biblical figure of Noah (the man for whom you are named), faithfulness to God was his top priority and the most important thing in his life.
Noah lived in a time of great wickedness. The Bible says the entire earth was corrupt in God’s sight and filled with violence. People were so evil that God was sorry that he had even made them.
But there was one man who stood apart from the rest. The Bible tells us that Noah found favor in the Lord’s eyes, so God promised to save him when he destroyed the rest of the world.
Now this is where the story gets interesting. God instructed Noah to build a big boat that would keep his family and some of the animals safe. So Noah listened to God and did what the Lord had told him. You can imagine how much ridicule and scorn Noah must have received for doing so. Here he is building this gigantic boat, only because he had a word from the Lord telling him to do so. Noah’s friends probably told him he was wasting his time. And over the years as he labored away, Noah must have been tempted at times to believe them. But he kept at it. He had a word from God, and that was enough.
We live in an age now that is similar to Noah’s day. Wickedness abounds on the earth, and it’s becoming increasingly common for people to mock and ridicule those of us who are committed to the Lord’s commands. Many people don’t like the idea that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation. Many people don’t like the fact that God has established marriage to be between one man and one woman. And so lots of those people want to belittle Christians who think that God knows better than we do. Chances are, if you walk with God faithfully and obey his commands, people will consider you to be old fashioned, unintelligent, backwards and even hateful.
But’s that’s OK, because their opinions don’t really matter. Like Noah, we have a word from God – the Bible – and that’s enough. What matters is what God thinks of you, not what others think of you. Noah’s neighbors must have thought he was loony, but Noah was justified in the end. Those who were wicked and hated God met their fate, and Noah was saved. The same is true in any age for those who hate God’s ways. They may think they know better than God, but they don’t. And they will be judged accordingly for rejecting God as their king.
So, as you celebrate your 5th birthday, my prayer for you is that you would be a man of character like your biblical namesake. Like Noah in the Bible, I pray that you would obey God rather than men. I pray that you would find favor in God’s eyes. I pray that God would strengthen you to live the way that he has called you to live, even when it’s difficult, and even when so many people around you believe otherwise. And I pray that as God provided an ark to save Noah from his judgment, he would shelter you in Christ from his wrath on sinners. Jesus Christ is our only hope, and I pray that you would flee to him for your salvation.
Happy birthday, buddy boy. I’m so glad God sent you to our family. I’m proud of you, and I love you very much.
Dad
Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!
Today we put up the Christmas tree. It’s always a joy to see how excited the kids get, and it’s an encouragement as we look at the various ornaments – out of sight for the past year – and the stories they tell about our lives. We have ornaments that mark our marriage, our children’s births, beloved pets, family vacations, important accomplishments and the like. These ornaments testify to God’s faithfulness in our lives – how he has provided for us, how he has directed our paths, how he has given us family, friends and each other in our journey through this life.
One of God’s greatest demonstrations of faithfulness to us will happen in just a couple of days when our two oldest children are baptized. I’ve written previously about Daniel’s conversion, which was sudden and dramatic, as many conversions are. Emmalee was a different story. Always a sweet girl with a caring, gentle spirit, Emmalee has shown evidences of God’s grace in her life for some time. She’s been telling us for the past several months that she wanted to be baptized . When she did, we’d talk to her about why she wanted to do so, what baptism meant and what the gospel message was. We wanted to be cautious, thinking that such a desire may have been just a passing fancy, and that at only 7 years of age, she may not have fully understood the significance of the matter.
But Emmalee persisted, and the more we have talked to her about baptism and salvation, the more we became convinced that God has indeed done a work of grace in her heart. We don’t know exactly the moment that the Lord changed her heart, but that’s not important. You don’t have to know when a tree was planted to recognize its fruit. After talking to our pastors, we decided that it would be fitting and appropriate for her to be baptized on the same day as her older brother.
What a joy that will be, witnessing two of my children make their public identification as followers of Christ. It is an answer to many years of fervent prayers. This has been the one thing that I’ve longed for more than anything else in life – to see my children come to Christ and to know that whatever may happen in this life, and however long I’ll have to spend with them here, a day is coming when I will be with them forever. My heart is flooded with joy and relief at that thought.
So as we begin another year of celebrating Christmas, we have many things to look forward to. We’ll enjoy watching the kids and the wonder and excitement that comes over them. We’ll have blessed times of fellowship with family and friends. But the thing I’ll remember the most from this Christmas season, and the blessing for which I am most grateful, will be the baptism of my two oldest children on Sunday. The Lord is truly faithful, and we are deeply thankful for it.
My phone rang on a recent Saturday morning as I sat with my family in a local donut shop. I saw that the caller was Union’s dean of students and knew that this wasn’t good. The dean of students doesn’t call me on a Saturday morning with tidings of comfort and joy.
“We had a student who was killed in a car accident last night,” he told me. “Her name was Leighton Williams.”
I didn’t know Leighton Williams. Had never met her. But now, I am eternally grateful for her and for the impact she has had on my family.
The Union University community is a tight-knit group, and Leighton’s death was a powerful blow to the students. I hated to see them hurt. I grieved for Leighton’s family and friends. It pained me to have to write stories about the news.
The following Tuesday I went to her visitation in Nashville and was struck by how tragic and senseless it all seemed. Here was a 20-year-old girl with a bright future. What looked like a completely random accident had changed all that, leaving heartache, despair and emptiness in its wake.
I had a meeting in Nashville later that evening and returned home to my family the next day. As we finished dinner on that Wednesday evening, the Scripture for our family devotion time was about the crucifixion. I used the occasion to speak to my three children about the gospel, and I used Leighton’s death as an example to them of why this was an urgent matter.
As Leighton went to class on Friday and prepared to travel home for the weekend, she had no idea that she was so close to eternity. Every indication was that Leighton was a believer, and I’m immensely grateful for that. But if she were like most of us, she wasn’t giving death a second thought that day.
I told my children that they needed to consider this. I told them that, like Leighton, they were only an unexpected car accident away from the beginning of eternity. They would stand before a holy God alone in their sins. No advocate. No mediator. The wrath of God amassed against them.
But I also told them that there was hope. Because of what Christ had accomplished through his sinless life, his sacrificial death and his triumphant resurrection, they didn’t need to fear such an outcome. All they had to do was trust in Christ’s work on their behalf — to believe in the gospel — and they would be saved.
My 10-year-old son Daniel was especially moved as he sat and listened to me. Later that night, after I put the kids to bed, Daniel came out of his room with tears in his eyes, saying that he wanted to be a Christian.
I talked with him about what that meant, and I truly believe that my precious son was converted that night. This was God’s answer to the prayers we have offered for his salvation for years. Daniel said later that it was Leighton’s accident that got him to thinking seriously about the state of his soul.
Leighton Williams’ death was a terribly tragedy, and I know the lives of her loved ones will never be the same. We don’t know why God allows such things to happen, and we may never know. But we do know that God is good, that he cares for his people and that he will work all things together for their good.
I do not give thanks for Leighton’s death. It was the work of Satan and the fruit of the sin and rebellion that has so thoroughly ravaged God’s perfect creation. I hated getting that call about the accident. I hated the pain and the grief that it caused. I hate it still.
I do, however, thank God with all my heart that he is a master designer and weaver. He took the tragedy of Leighton’s death and used it for something glorious and good, and my son will forever be with me in heaven because of it.
The impact of Leighton’s life didn’t stop with her death, and God in his providence has forever intertwined her with my family. Though I never met her in this life, I look forward to doing so in the next.
Dear Emmalee: My prayer for you on your 7th birthday
Posted by: | CommentsDear Emmalee,
I love watching you create. Whether you’re sitting around the living room playing with Legos, coloring a picture or making some other crafty piece, I often will sit and watch what you’re doing.
Your creativity certainly comes from your mama and not from me. She regularly uses her skills to be a blessing to others, and I see you doing the same thing. I’m proud of the way that you color pictures for your friends, because I know your kindess will brighten their day. I’m always pleased when you want to give me one of your creations. Many times in my office I’ve sat back and smiled as I’ve looked at one of your pictures on my wall. They make me think of you, and that always makes me happy.
In the book of Acts, the Bible tells about a woman who used her skills and her creativity to bless others. Her name was Tabitha, or Dorcas.
We don’t know a lot about Dorcas, but we do know that she often made clothes to give away to other people. The Bible describes her as being “full of good works and acts of charity.” But then Dorcas got sick, and she died. Lots of people were sad because they loved her so much. She had been generous and kind, and I hope that you will grow up to be the same way.
But even more important than Dorcas’ generosity was the way that God used her life to bring glory to him. The Bible tells us that after Dorcas had died, Peter came and brought her back to life! Of course, that wasn’t because of any ability that Peter had. God was the one who raised Dorcus from the dead, and he did it to glorify himself. After Dorcas had been brought back to life, the Bible tells us that “it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.”
So Emmalee, my prayer for you as you celebrate your seventh birthday is that like Dorcas, you would grow up to be “full of good works and acts of charity.” I pray that God would continue to cultivate your creativity, and that it would be a source of joy not only for you, but for others as well. But most importantly, I pray that your life would be a giant finger pointing to the goodness and grace of God, and that he would be honored through you.
Happy birthday, my 7-year-old Sweet Pea. You bring much joy to my heart, and I love you deeply.
Dad