Isaiah 25: 1.
	O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.

	"He is exalted, the King is exalted on high! I will praise Him!"

	I remember singing this song by Leah's hospital bed not too long ago. Laura and the others were in the cafeteria eating, and I was sitting with Leah, praising the Lord and thanking Him because she had just been released from ICU that morning onto the floor of the UCLA Children's Ward. I was rejoicing in our glorious Lord and trying to get a response from Leah. The nurse walked in, smiled at me and went about her duties. I don't know what her thoughts were, but mine were filled with joyous exaltation to our Lord for His great Love and tender mercy. 	This song of worship to our most deserving Lord has taken a much deeper meaning over the course of the last weeks. It has become an anthem of praise to our God sung with all sincerity as Leah joins in the refrain with all her heart. In a great part this is because I know that she has accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior. Maybe it took this to awaken a father's responsibility in me, to bring all that I have to the Lord in praise and adoration including each member of my family for whom I have been given stewardship unto Him. He has truly done such excellent things in our family in His truth and with His grace-filled guidance.
	This evening, I would like to share some of the joy of the past few weeks as an encouragement to each of us to give God ever increasing exaltation for being our Lord, our Savior, our Creator and our Comfort. He is deserving of all the praise that is within us, and yet, many times, I have been slack in my effort to truly glorify Him. Yes, I have been able to join in the worship, at least on Sunday mornings. Yes, I have fulfilled my duty unto Him in preparation for the Tuesday Night meetings with the young people. But have I been filled with the desire to bring to Him my best exaltation of His name, or merely a few moments of praise as time permitted. In looking back over the course of the past weeks, it is shamefully apparent that I was distracted from giving unto God that which He fully deserved in my life. I was involved in things at work, with the family and in seeking after my wants, rather than seeking after the desired adoration of the Lord. I allowed this earth to capture my attention, and to detract from my concentration upon the glory of my God, my Savior, my First-Love. It is so easy to get caught up in the issues of the day, and to lose sight of the only true issue of life, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and I was caught in that trap. It took a seemingly calamitous situation to awaken the devotion in my heart that the Lord merited. That heart-felt provision of glory to our God was resulting from the recent events surrounding our daughter, Leah.
	I hope you will bear with me this evening as I share some of the details of this recent event. It is appropriate in illustrating just how much we need the Lord Jesus Christ in evey aspect of our lives, and how much He deserves our very best praise.
	The week before Leah's most recent difficulty, the fellowship prayed for Leah's health at the Sunday morning prayer service. Laura and Rebekka had remained at home, down with the flu that was going around. We knew how adversely Leah could be affected by even minor illnesses, even a cold. Under healthy conditions, she requires all of her energy to simply carry on a daily routine such as walking and performing the many other activities most of us simply take for granted. However, when her body has to fight any kind of an illness, all her other functions become decreased or nonexistent as all her energy is apparently geared toward warding off the germs that are attacking her system. The year before, she had lost various functions of her neurological system, including her ability to walk, all because she had come down with a simple cold. It had taken over five months for her to regain what was considered to be her baseline abilities of daily operation. So we knew what something like the flu could do to her. Her neurological system seems to be most affected by illness, and therefore most noticeably decreased. This is why we requested that the fellowship keep her in prayer in the midst of the flu that was spreading through our family, through her school, and through the fellowship. We knew that she was in the Lord's hand, and that whatever He chose to do in her physical body, we would see it through, but we were hopeful that she would be spared the severe difficulties which had been evidenced last year.
	That was not the Lord's design for the week, however. On that Wednesday, she became ill, and spent most of the day confined to bed. For the first couple of days, she did not seem to be as severely impacted by her illness. She only seemed to be suffering from the tiring effects of the flu and not from the neorological problems that were apparent the previous year. By that Saturday, however, everything had changed. We noticed that she was hourly losing some of her neurological abilities and was even hallucinating about hearing and seeing things. She would not bear the slightest touch because her nervous system seemed to be overly sensitive to any stimulation, so we took her to the doctor. He stated that she was apparently leveling off in her abilities during this illness, as he had evidenced in other patients with similar disorders. The fact that she was still responsive and drinking liquids made the doctor feel that she was not in severe danger at that time and would probably be fine after a period of recuperation. We took Leah home, and watched as she sank lower and lower in her functioning. It seemed that each hour, she would lose more and more of her abilities,  functions and responsiveness. Her eyes were rolled back into her sockets, she did not want to be held and she would just be on her knees on the carpet with her entire body trembling and tremoring. It was an intense period of prayer, as parents, before the Lord. There were tears in my eyes as I would look at her and at Laura and we couldn't do anything to help Leah. We knew that she was in the Lord's hands, but there was that empty helplessness that can infest us when we watch someone we love suffering. The Lord used this opportunity to reaffirm to the both of us that our trust was in Him, not in doctors or any other kind of hope. The doctors and anyone else can only do what the Lord guides them to do, and He doesn't need them nor modern medicine to cure an illness. Neither can doctors or anyone else save someone whom the Lord decides to call unto Himself. 
	Mom and Dad came by to pray with us, and it was a tear-filled time of trusting the Lord with our loved one. As we prayed together, and stood together, there was a definite confidence that the Lord would have His good pleasure in the life of Leah, as He has had since the time that He created her. 
	Leah continued to digress further as we were gathered for family night, and prayed together as a family for Leah. We kept monitoring her through the progression of that Saturday night, until finally Laura felt that Leah had become non-responsive. Mom and Dad and Liz O'Reilly met us at the emergency room, and we spent several hours that early Sunday morning, as Leah was poked, prodded, tested and analyzed to no avail. The Emergency room staff released her to go home because they felt that there was nothing more they could do for her. Again, it was a time spent before the Lord, seeking after Him to step in and make it known what would help Leah, and again it was seemingly to no avail. She was no better than when we had taken her to the hospital, and we were told there was nothing they could do. Again, the fact that God in the One in charge of Leah's life became the focal point. 
	Mom and Dad encouraged us to take Leah home and to try to get some sleep. They felt that it would be best since we had been up round the clock for the previous several days and had spent that early Sunday morning at the hospital. They weren't encouraging us to miss worship, but did feel that if Leah fell asleep, that we should not wake her up but rather allow her to finally get some much needed rest. Both Laura and myself laid down on our bed, with Leah, and yet we were all awake well before church that Sunday morning. We had been praying quietly by ourselves with the Lord, and as we conversed felt that we wanted, no, needed to go to the worship that morning. It was a miserable day, weather-wise, and we prayed together concerning the pro's and con's of taking Leah out in the rain and cold. We also prayed about the fact of whether it was wise to expose Leah to the fellowship in her incapacitated condition, and whether we should expose the fellowship to her. Finally, we both agreed that we needed to be together with our family in Christ. Leah needed to be with those who loved her and we desired, if the fellowship was willing, to have our family in Christ lay hands on Leah and pray with her unto the Lord. We had to be together with you, not only in Spirit, not only in Love, in Christ, but in the Body of Christ. There was no other place for us but in worship joined together in praise unto our most gracious and loving Lord God Almighty.
	It was such a body of love who received us that morning. My heart went out as we gathered together in prayer, and there was such an outpouring of God's grace that we would have missed it if we had not been together that day. We had to be with you, together in Him. Whenever a member is hurting, the whole body is affected, and needs to stand together and hold each other up in Christ, and that is what took place that morning.
	When we went home, we called the doctor again, as he had instructed. After describing Leah's non-responsive condition, he told us to take her to UCLA Medical Center immediately, and that he would have her admitted because of his concern over the possible shut-down of her respiratory system. It was at this point that I had to go to the Lord with my concern about Leah's life. Up to this point, I had been able to acknowledge Christ's Lordship, but now I had to trust in His Lordship even unto the possible death of my daughter. Sometimes it is so easy to trust the Lord when things are not too critical, even when things are major in my life. But, when it comes to the lives of our loved ones, that trust can sometimes be weak. I was before the Lord in weakness, and still am. I had to take a stand in my heart that whatever happened was for the glory of the Lord and for Leah's best interest. I kept praying about things such as that this may be the Lord's way of keeping her from having a life of misery in her condition, and the truth that the Lord loves her so much that He just might to call her unto Himself. Every thought seemed to be focussed on the possibility that she would be taken away, and I finally cried out in despair whatever road, whatever way, Lord you are my God and you are Leah's God. You are not a God of frustration, or despair. You are a God of Love and Grace and Mercy. If it be your will to take Leah from us, be glorified in our loss, and if you choose to continue her life among us be glorified in it. Have your way! And I meant it then and I mean it today. These were words born out of the reality that Our God Reigns Now and Evermore!
	There was a calmness that settled in my heart from that point on. The UCLA situation was not pleasant, but the Lord was there and He made it glorious. She was put into ICU. It was a painful experience to see Leah laying in a coma with all those tubes and monitoring wires plugged in. We had to relate her history over and over again to so many nurses and doctors. But, there was a peace about the whole scene. God was our strength through it all. 
	Then, after a couple of days in the ICU, Leah began a rapid recovery which amazed us. We felt that such a severe down-turn would take several months or longer for her to recuperate. The Lord, however,  had her out of the hospital by the end of the week. She is still not fully back to par, but she is so much more recovered than what had been true of the previous year's illness. She even returned to school within a few weeks, and everything seems to be coming together much more rapidly this time.
	The most wonderful aspect of this entire glory took place several weeks after the hospitalization. We had been dealing with Revelations in our Young People's Tuesday night meeting, and on the way home, Jonathan asked about Leah and whether she was saved or not. He had been very concerned about her during the episode and wanted to know what would have happened if she had not made it, what would the Lord have done? I assured Jonathan that Leah loved the Lord, and that the Lord loved Leah, and that was especially evident as she would give herself whole-heartedly in praise on Sunday mornings and evenings. Yet, there was something inside of me, the Holy Spirit, who called to mind my responsibility as a parent in the Lord. I had been faithful to testify to Rebekka of the Lord, and she had accepted Him as her Lord and Savior, and yet I had not done so with Leah, who was at the same age that Rebekka had accepted Him. I thanked Jonathan for mentioning the fact that Leah was old enough to accept the Lord, and went home with the prayer that He would prepare her heart to accept Him. 
	Leah was on the bed, and I asked her if we could talk about something very important. She sat and listened as I talked about the Lord Jesus Christ and how much He loved her and how He desired to live in her heart if she would ask Him to come in. My eyes were filled with joyful tears as she prayed to have the Lord Jesus Christ live in her heart and be her Lord and Savior.
	In all truthfulness, if this is the only outcome of her down-turn, it was well worth it. The joy of knowing that she has accepted Christ, makes all the grief of those weeks disappear. And yet, it has touched me in another manner. When we sing the song, "He is Exalted", I can't help but remember how we stood together as a fellowship on that Sunday morning. It was the only response that Leah gave that morning, and yet it expressed the heart of the Body of Christ. He truly is Exalted, and we need to bear witness of that truth in our lives. There is no more room for the other things which so easily beset us. Our lives need to be focussed on what is truly important, now and forever, that in our lives HE IS EXALTED!

Isaiah 25: 1.
	O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.