Jonathan Cooper Update

We hope you all had a wonderful Resurrection weekend. We had a very nice Easter weekend at our house. On Saturday, we finished up the last of our shopping that we needed to do, and then spent the rest of the day at home together coloring Easter eggs and getting ready for Easter Sunday. The Easter Bunny made a stop at our house and brought baskets full of neat things and lots of candy! The kids all had on their new Easter clothes and they all looked awesome! Jonathan got to wear his brand new suit, with his new shirt and tie, and his new boots. He looked especially handsome! Elizabeth and Sarah helped lead the kids in worship during the Sunday School hour and Elizabeth sang a solo and did a beautiful job. We enjoyed watching the resurrection together during church. On our way home from church, we passed McDonalds and started discussing whether it was open on Easter Sunday or not. Lamar said, “Why would anyone go to McDonalds for Easter lunch?” Our memories kicked in and we remembered having Easter lunch at that very same McDonalds just one year ago. It was one of the most special Sunday lunches we ever ate together. However, we are so thankful that we didn’t have to return to the hospital after lunch. God is so good! This year, we had lunch with all the Cooper family and spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying our family. It was a great weekend. On Monday, I finally got a phone call from the doctor’s office about the results of the Cushing’s test. This was after I had to call them twice to get an answer. The nurse said that it had improved, but the doctor wanted to go ahead and do one more test. He wanted him to take a pill before bed one night and go have blood drawn first thing the next morning. I asked what the level was this time and it was 23.8. Remember that the first level was 34.5 and the normal range is 1-30. I told her that I was pleased with this result and that since it was within normal range I was not interested in having another test done. I was irritated that they wanted to continue to pursue testing with this, even though the results came back within normal range. However, I had to smile and just praise the Lord for His goodness and answered prayer again. After asking for your prayers, and praying for over a month that the results would come back within normal range, God answered that prayer. God continues to reveal His healing in Jonathan’s life and we are so grateful for His healing and for your faithful prayers. Later on that day, we went to some friend’s house and got to swim for the afternoon. Can you believe it was hot enough to swim in the middle of April? It’s amazing, but it was. The kids had a great time swimming with several of their friends from church. It was so hot this week that horse therapy got canceled on Tuesday. We did go see Mrs. Lori on Tuesday. Jonathan continues to improve and she is still working on many emotional issues as well as physical things with him. She worked some more with him on his walking and tried to show me some things that I could work on with him. We are trying to get out and walk in the evenings before it gets dark to keep up on our exercise. Since Sarah is playing in another basketball league, and her games are on Thursday evenings, we have had to move drum lessons to another night of the week. This week Jonathan had his lesson on Tuesday evening. He continues to get better and better each week. We appreciate Mr. Brian and his willingness to teach Jonathan to play. After drum lessons, we went by the church to pick up Dad because he was there doing some work. While we waited for him to get finished, we took our evening walk around the church building. Jonathan really concentrated on keeping his feet straight and keeping his pace up while he walked. He worked really hard and walked incredibly well. I was so proud of him. We are on the last few weeks of Awana. Jonathan is just 3 sections away from finishing his book. The very last thing he has to do is recite again, 16 of the verses that he has learned throughout his book. All I have to do is give him the first word of the verse and he will recite it completely. After Awana tonight, we joined the cast party for 8 Days. Before we left, we had a chance to say good-bye to Randy Sterrett, the one we affectionately refer to as “Jesus”. This man is such an incredible blessing to know. He is so kind, caring and gentle. Each time Jonathan approaches him, he gets down on his knee, eye level with Jonathan, puts his arm around him and just takes all the time needed to talk to Jonathan. He is the perfect picture of the Lord Jesus with my little child. I have never met anyone that portrayed Jesus in a play whose life mirrored the Lord’s life as much as this man. He does not become someone else to play Jesus. His character is the same whether he is Jesus or Randy. Before we left, he hugged Jonathan and told him he loved him. We are so blessed that God chose Randy to play such a significant part in Jonathan’s life story. Jonathan is still doing okay with his sleeping. We have not had a night of being up every 15 minutes for a couple of weeks, so that is a praise. At least we are not utterly exhausted all the time. Although he is sill getting up several times a night, he will sleep for longer periods of time between waking up. He does have a few hours usually in the middle of the night where he is up more frequently. He is much more mobile now, so when he wakes up, he usually stands right up and sometimes he will walk back and forth from our room to his room before he will settle down again. It is a struggle sometimes to get him to lay back down when he gets up. Once again, he is still asleep and doesn’t remember a thing. Nevertheless, we will take any improvement we can get!
We are cutting our week a little short this week as we are making our first major road trip since Jonathan got out of the hospital. We are traveling to Mississippi to wish our Mamaw Agent a happy 80 th birthday. We are very excited about the trip. It’s been a long time since we have been able to go on a trip, plus, the kids always love to go to Mamaw’s house. It will be a quick trip and we will return on Sunday. Please pray for our safety and that Jonathan will be comfortable, at ease and that he will be able to sleep well while we are gone.
As always, thank you so much for your faithful prayers on our behalf. We are so grateful for all of you. Join us as we praise God for His continued healing in Jonathan’s life and for answering our prayers for the Cushing’s test results. Continue to pray for healing of his sleeping and that it would continue to improve soon. Pray that we will be able to work with Jonathan on his walking and help him improve and walk more correctly. Pray that God will continue to provide for our needs and will give us direction regarding his continuing therapy. Pray that God will continue to reveal His complete healing of Jonathan’s brain, vision and diabetes. And pray for our trip this weekend. We love you all!

2 Thessalonians 2:16 - 3:1 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.