Special Prayers for Ethan

I have shared often about my third child Ethan. He is deaf, but through the brilliance of a few men, he is wearing Cochlear Implants, which have allowed him to hear through technological means.

He did not start hearing until he was three years old. He will be six this month. He has holes in his language and in his understanding of anything that is not concrete. It often takes much more dialogue, any kind of parallels I can bring in to help him along. He is doing excellent in school, as education at his age is very concrete in the process of learning.

Last night he was afraid of going to sleep. I can not imagine hearing absolutely nothing, and then closing your eyes. This is common for deaf children. So we have allowed him to sleep with his devices on, and we go and take them off after he has fallen into sleep.

I asked him if we should pray and ask Jesus to take away the fear of going to sleep and he started crying and said that he did not have Jesus in his heart. I said, you can ask Jesus into your heart. He responded with more tears and said he was not ready to leave the earth. He still wanted to be part of our family. I realized that his complete understanding of having Jesus in our hearts was that we would go to heaven. For him and his thought process that meant that he would then be going to heaven. He said he did not want to die now.

I explained that mommy and papa have Jesus in our hearts and we are still on earth, his sister and his older brother, all have Jesus in their hearts and they are still here. That if there was an accident and you died then yes if you have Jesus in your heart you will got to heaven, but for now Jesus has lots of work for us to here on earth.

I began to weep over how his handicap will challenge him in his process of learning. As he gets older, this will become less as he has still had to go through all the levels of learning language. My heart just ached to see his heart so desire to have Jesus, but he could not get over the fact that heaven was the next step. I asked him if he wanted to ask Jesus into his heart, but he could not grasp that he would still be here, on earth with his family, so he said no.

I pray over all of my children, but today I pray more for Ethan as he struggles with his passion to know Jesus, takes time to read his little Bible, works hard as he learns his Bible passages from school, and yet will not ask him into his heart for the fear that this is the final step before heaven. I know God is going to use this boy in amazing ways, and I am here to guide him, pray over him, and live my life as an example of who He is. Thanks for reading and please pray a special little prayer for Ethan.