an update and an awesome movie coming out soon

On Sunday, it will be five weeks since my sister-in-love Tracy received her new heart.  Just to keep things in perspective for you, and how serious things were with all the ups and downs and major setbacks that kept happening, they had said that when heart transplants go well, the patient could go home in as little as eight days.  And here we are, almost five weeks out, and as I write this, she is still a patient at Vanderbilt. 

There were so many things that happened that most of you know about, after her surgery.  One major thing was that they had to open her back up two additional times, and after that second time, they kept her open for a few days to keep a vigilant eye on her.  They did finally close her back, though, and she started making forward progress. 

She suffered a stroke at some point, sometime during that Sunday of the transplant and the Friday after that, if I'm recalling correctly.  The stroke caused her to have some vision problems, mainly her not seeing at all out of one eye and the other eye being blurry.  She has already learned to compensate for that one eye not being able to be used, and we are hopeful that her vision will return.  She experienced some memory issues as well, I think Tim called it aphasia, in which she mixes up words.  That will get better, too, with therapy, and she has learned to laugh when she gets words wrong. 

I'm writing this today, because FRIENDS.  Today is the day she gets to leave Vanderbilt hospital for the first time since March 15th.  Praise be to God!  I do not say that lightly, most of you know that.  Once again, this amazingly strong and fierce warrior named Tracy has overcome obstacle after obstacle.  (I think I forgot to mention on here that her name actually means "warrior" or "fighter".)  God, in all His sovereignty, has performed many miracles in her life, almost too many to even count.  I mention God's sovereignty because remember, even if things had turned out very differently, He is always good and loving and faithful, and because He acts only in the way that is His will.  I will say again, that things could have turned out very differently, and we all kind of thought that was the way this was all going to happen several times during these last few weeks.  I do not know why some people survive such things, and some do not, but I will tell you this: He will get the glory and praise from all that He has done in Tracy's life.  She has already written that one book that I mentioned in my last post about her, Unstoppable God, and we've all been taking notes for her to write that next book.  (Who knows if that will happen, but I think it should.)  We just know that God is sovereign and He is trustworthy.  You know I say that because so many times, situations don't have happy endings, and I want to be sensitive to those who have had things go terribly wrong. 

She doesn't get to go home quite yet, but they are releasing her to an in-patient rehab facility.  I don't know how long she will be there, but she has some pretty intense days of rehab ahead of her.  She will also continue to have weekly heart biopsies, to make sure her body is not rejecting the heart.  She still needs prayers, because of these things and for supernatural strength for her to get through this next phase.  To my knowledge, they have removed all or almost all of the tubes that she still had attached to her, and they have her up and walking laps.  Look at this picture that Tim shared on Facebook yesterday.

She will be super susceptible to sicknesses for a while, I'm sure, and that's why she had the mask on.  I know their goal is to keep her as healthy as possible.  But doesn't she look amazing, after all that she has been through?  I don't know why I expected her to look very differently, but this made my heart leap with joy when I saw this yesterday. 

I know so many of our friends were praying for her throughout this time, and I want to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart.  I do not know how people get through life without Jesus and the hope He gives us when we become believers and followers of Him.  I don't ever want to know.  I believe in the power of prayer, too, and have seen with my eyes what happens when believers gather to pray in His name.  So thank you, again, on behalf of the entire Goodwin and Jones families.  (The Jones family is Tracy's mom and dad.) 

On a totally different note, I saw a preview a couple of days ago for an upcoming movie that I wanted to share with you.  I love faith based movies, and I believe it is so important to go see such movies on their opening nights so they will be in theaters longer.  Those are pretty much all of the movies I ever see these days, unless it's another amazing musical, and I wanted to share this with all of you.  It's a great movie for everyone, but one that I feel all parents should see.  Here is a link you can click on to watch the trailer for yourself. 

Thanks for reading, friends.  Have a great day!  Love to all.