Clouds of Mercy

"Happy New Year from the Van Patters. We are thankful for so many things as the year 2014 comes to a close and 2015 begins, not the...

I had the privilege of leading the folks of Hope Chapel in an Ash Wednesday worship service tonight. I wanted to share my opening/welcome w...

The "king" of Brenner went home to be with the Lord yesterday after a 20 month battle with Infant ALL. While we rejoice that littl...

Cancer has left its mark on me. Some days I'm not sure which way is up and which is down. Simple things feel complicated and I can't...

Watts is sleeping off a traumatic morning of changing out his NG tube and I'm taking some much needed deep breaths too. Holding my so...

I can feel the anxiety rising up in my throat, a warm flood of panic that wants to consume me. The day starts seeming impossible, the clouds...

I'm waiting on labs to come back to know if we can go home tonight...it's currently 10:15pm, but I don't care. If he has cleared...

  My babies seem confused, angered even as I interact with them. Piper gives me the cold shoulder at bath time and asks for her Gigi (my m...

Oh prayer warriors, can you pray? We've had a hellacious night as Watts' little body goes through serious drug withdrawal from the...

Here we are, our home for the next month or so. Today started off encouraging, with our PICU medical crew talking very po...

I finally asked how long we were going to be here at Brenner. I've been thinking in chunks of 24 hrs and, honestly, I don't think I ...

Over the past few days, several of our doctors and nurses and encouraged us to "just think about today". What needs to be done t...