Growth

23 hours on 1 hour off.

This is Maggie’s daily helmet routine. She sleeps in it and chills in it and then 6:30pm rolls around and we take her out of it. Maggie gets to cool off with a nice hair wash, and we all get in our Maggie time by giving her hugs that allow our cheeks to press close against hers and let us feel her sweet little hair. We clean the helmet with rubbing alcohol and let it dry until 7:30pm when it goes right back on her head.

So far, she doesn’t mind a bit. We watch for sores or irritation, we keep her surrounded by fans so she stays cool and she just rolls with it.

This last Monday we ventured up for an appointment with the orthotist that is helping us with her helmet. He monitors for growth and makes sure the helmet is doing the job it is supposed to do, namely assisting proper growth and head formation. With Maggie’s skull surgery her sutures on the side of her forehead were “released” or, opened. From the top of her head to the ear a centimeter worth of bone was taken out on both sides. If left as it is, without the helmet, her brain and skull could grow in any direction, with the helmet we are promoting growth in the front and back. And it is working. In the last week her head circumference had increased by a centimeter. 7/10s of that was in the front and back, precisely what we want and we can totally see a difference.

Maggie’s head had a very flat slant in the back and behind her right ear her skull was pressed in from the way we had been holding her. She has a harder time breathing when she lays on her left so when we comforted her we cradled her on her right side. We can see the difference and it gives us hope that at the end of this helmet journey she won’t have to do another skull surgery. Her only job will be to grow.

This whole helmet thing is such a lesson to me. I feel like God is using it to teach me about my desire for growth. I see areas in myself that need change. These aren’t those “you are too critical” areas… these are legit, “Jesus needs you to cut that out” areas. And they are hard to change because they are habits, unhealthy habits.

I need a helmet, I need something to hem me in, I need the rod and staff. I need that 23 on and 1 hour off regimen. In all reality though I do the helmet routine, twice a year. This is what Lent and Advent are, they are these “helmets” prompting growth in the right direction. What I am realizing now is that the centimeters worth of growth had previously made me feel like a failure because I wasn’t absolutely perfect in 40 days. It had made me feel like I wasted a season, that I wasn’t any nearer to holiness, to love, to God.

Yet here I am ecstatic over a centimeter of growth with my daughter, knowing that this small steady growth is what moves us to our goal, the goal of health and well-being.

How many times, how many times, how many times will the Lord have to teach me that He is patient and faithful? That He loves me more than I love myself? That He is ecstatic over a centimeter of growth and any “yes” I give Him?