with my song I praise him.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trust in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy and with my song I praise him. Psalm 28: 7

Albert's first Halloween was spent at the hospital. 

He was incredibly fussy all morning and I had an instinctual feeling that something wasn't right. I asked Adam to come home from work early because I needed help.  Nothing I did was able to console my crying son. My gut told me to take his temperature.  It read 100.8 and with that I knew something was wrong.  Adam walked in the door and I told him with tears in my eyes that we had to go to the hospital because Albert had a fever. 

When we arrived they took all his vitals and reassured us that we did the right thing by bringing him in. I was barely keeping it together as my child cried and cried, but when they started to tell us the "game plan" I could no longer keep my brave face on. The doctors gently told us they needed to take blood and urine and even mentioned a possible lumbar puncture.  Tears  ran down my face as I bravely accepted that they needed to do all these test to rule out a major illness. I was able to hold Albert close while we waited for the nurses to come in to start collecting samples. All I could do was cry and pray that Bertie would be brave. 

The nurses came in and started the procedures. I was able to stroke Albert's hair and hold his hand in hopes of comforting him. Once they finished taking his blood, swabbing his nose, and extracting a urine sample we were left to wait for the results. 

Adam sat by my side as I nursed Bertie and we melted into each others arms. To see your child in pain and scared is the worst feeling in the world. 

Adam knew I needed a distraction because we had a while to wait before the results came back. He looked at me and smiled and said "when I count to three sing the first song that comes to your head."

One. Two. Three. My mind raced to quickly think of a song to match what Adam could possibly be thinking of. I was honestly thinking Adam was going to start spitting off some vulgar Childish Gambino lyrics and I was trying to prepare myself for the embarrassment. 

Then the words came to me out of nowhere. How great is our God. Sing with me how great is our God...as I sang these words I couldn't believe it. I was singing words of praise to God when I was so incredibly scared. Adam slowly joined me as we sang the chorus over and over with tears streaming down our cheeks. Honestly we couldn’t remember the verses, but to sing the few words we knew comforted us so deeply in that moment. 

I don't know what caused me to think of that song but I was incredibly happy I did. In that moment I was reminded how great our God is. I knew he would hold us and help us though whatever was to come. 

The doctor came back and told us all the tests came back normal and that Albert was fighting off a virus. The dose of Tylenol they gave him kicked in and his fever subsided and he slept in my arms.  We were told to give him Tylenol to help with his discomfort and to go home and rest.

I wish I could say it was all uphill from there but the night to come was awful. 

When we got home he nursed and had one more dose of Tylenol and whet to bed only to wake a couple hours later screaming. Exhausted and worn down I took his temperature and wanted to cry as I watched it rise to 104.2. I was beside myself and feared for my son. I called to Adam and handed him Albert unsure as to what to do. I called my pediatrician only to be transferred to a help line that closed literally four minutes earlier. I screamed inside desperate for help. 

I eventually called the ER only to be told they couldn't help me over the phone. I lost it. I hopelessly pleaded for the lady to help me. I just needed to know if I had to bring my son back into the hospital. The operator graciously promised to contact the head ER nurse to have her call me back. 

I went back to my crying son and placed a cool rag on his head and prayed. Once the ER nurse called me back she reassured me we were doing everything right and that we had to just ride out the fever. 

I wasn't sure if I was relieved or not because it meant that I could do nothing to soothe my son from his discomfort. 

We all crawled into bed and resumed to have the longest night of our lives. I held Albert on my chest the whole night barely sleeping as I gently rocked him with every whimper. 

As the morning light began to rise I was able to lay him next to me and relax my arms. My body ached and my heart hurt even more. 

We continued to offer him Tylenol to help and after three days his fever broke. 

I know God was calling me to be faithful during this time. I had to trust the doctors that told me to stay home and just comfort my son and I had to trust that Albert's fever would subside. God was working in those moments. So as I softly sang How great is our God over those three days I was reminding myself that God was in control and that his greatness could help us get though Albert's illness.