Friday, March 16, 2007

Asking For Your Prayers

A couple days ago I received an email from Matt Reisetter. Matt is one of my best friends and someone I respect, admire, and look up to. He is a man of integrity and one of the best guys that you could ever be around. His wife Jen is one of the greatest women I have ever met. She is a great woman of faith, a great wife, a great mother, and a great friend. She is basically a Proverbs 31 kind of woman. Matt and Jen have the kind of marriage that I strive to have. I love these two people.

As I read the email my heart was saddened to hear that they had received some disturbing news. Here is the email that Matt sent me.

Hello friends and family!

Most of you probably know by now that Jen is pregnant with our second child – a daughter, who is due to be born on August 3.

On Monday Jen received results from a run-of-the-mill blood test which indicated that our daughter is at an increased risk for Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome (that’s a mouthful …SLOS is easier!) and Trisomy 18. Both are serious genetic disorders. The first leads to significant mental retardation and other serious physical defects, and the second leads to death – either before the end of pregnancy (miscarriage or stillbirth) or within the first year of life.

Based on what the doctors are saying, the chances that these disorders will inevitably occur, with blood test results like Jen’s, are 1 in 31 for SLOS and 1 in 10 for Trisomy 18. So far, based on our first ultrasound, there are no symptoms evident for either disorder, which is initially good news. We’ll be heading to Iowa City for a more specialized ultrasound next Tuesday, which may reveal more clearly where we’re at.

Regardless of the results of these tests, Jen will carry this baby to term or until the pregnancy is naturally terminated … we are decidedly pro-life with our words and with our actions, and I’m proud of Jen for that.

While we trust that the Lord has a plan, and while we believe that his plan – regardless of the outcome – is best, we’ll be spending much time in prayer presenting our requests to him until we know what that outcome is, and we invite you to do the same on our behalf. Here are a few of our specific requests:

1) That our daughter would develop normally and healthily; that neither of these disorders would affect her.
2) That the doctors would have wisdom and knowledge to come up with correct diagnosis and proper administration of tests
3) That God would give us the physical and emotional strength – especially Jen – to face whatever comes
4) That we would have wisdom to communicate as clearly and as appropriately to Mason about all this as possible – he’s pretty excited about having a baby sister, so this could be hard on him
5) That we and others close to us would learn from this experience and grow spiritually in the ways that God intends

Other than being a little anxious about what may come, we’re doing well – so don’t feel like you’ve got to walk on pins and needles around us!

Thanks for your prayers – I know I've forgotten several people who I should be sending this to ... sorry. Please pass this along to anyone else who may be interested.

The Reisetters


I am not writing this post in order for you to feel bad for Matt and his family. In fact in talking with Matt, that is the last thing he wants. He knows that many people have dealt with far greater problems. However, I am writing this to ask for your prayers and encouraging words for the Reisetter family.
God is a God that can heal and is a God of miracles. As you can see from Matt's letter, all the Reisetter's want is for God's will to be done, whatever that may be. Let's pray for that. Let's pray for the five things that Matt listed above, and if you can please leave some encouraging notes for the Reisetter's in the comments section.

Be a difference maker today. Pray. Leave an encouraging word. God has blessed us. Let us bless others.

Thank you.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to hear from you Timmy B. I just said a prayer for them. Thanks for sending this my way.

Hope things are going well for you in your world as well.

Doug

Thomases said...

I became aware of your post because of the Proverbs 31 woman mention - I have a blog dedicated to a study on this woman.

Please know that my prayers are with this family even though I don't know them. They look like such a lovely family and I pray that God's will be done and that they will have a normal, healthy and happy daughter.

M&M in Japan said...

Timmy B,

Great to see you on Doug's blog and also here.

Matt and Jen,

We will be praying for you and your little one! Our heart and our thoughts are with you guys! Timmy B is right, you guys are great. Wish I could you meet you guys more, but we're a little far from home!

Bless you each,
Mark and Maki

Anonymous said...

Tim,
Tim,
Good to hear from you as well. Thanks for linking me up and I'll do the same on mine. Please update me on the Reisetters so I can pray for them accordingly. I'll check up on your blog to get a closer look at what's going on in your world from time to time. Take care!

Doug

Anonymous said...

Timmy and others,

Thanks for your kind words and your prayers. Jen is more anxious than I am, but both of us just want to know "the verdict". We are also both completely trusting the Lord. He has blessed us in so many ways - and even if what we now think would be "the worst case scenario" were to occur, he would use it to bless us still.

Again, thanks to all. We're not nearly as cool as Tim indicates ... he's embellishing a little!! The only reason he has to "look up" to me is the fact that I'm 6'5"!! :)

Anonymous said...

It is a very scary thing when your AFI levels come back this way and genetic counseling and level two ultrasounds and amnios can be very overwhelming. I went through the same thing when I was pregnant with Logan who is now one. My odds were almost exactly the same as Matt and his wife's were. I was having a very difficult time dealing with this and the stress that comes with it when I was going through it and my friend Jen told me something amazing. She said to me "Just because man's odds are against you does not mean that God's are. God's odds are never against you. And should it be the case that your baby has one of these inflictions, if God brings you to it He will bring you through it. Now with threats of Trisomy 21, Trisomy 18, and SLOS I was scared out of my mind but faith in God and the fact that I was reminded His odds are never against me brought me through it. I hope that these words can help bring strength to your friends too. And please tell them that 1 in 10 odds for bad things still means a 9 in 10 chance for that not to be the case. Logan is healthy and is now getting into everything. Just don't ever forget that God is hearing everyone's prayers and it's only MAN's odds that are not for them. Not God's.

Mitch Hoffman said...

Tim-
Just read your post from Reisetter. I will be thinking about them and appreciate you posting the info. I hope this finds you well. Mitch