TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
Gideon awaits his embolization procedure at the Dallas Children’s Hospital.
Gideon leaves the Ronald McDonald House in Dallas with his dad, Major Harris, on December 20, 2024, just in time to celebrate Christmas at home.
Major, Morgan, Gideon, and Archer Harris celebrate Gideon’s second birthday.
long weeks, we walked back into the hospital bracing ourselves for another wave of uncertainty. After the MRI was completed, we headed back to the Ronald McDonald House to wait on the results and to prepare for surgery in the morning. A few hours later we received a call from the neurosurgeon himself. It was a phone call I will remember until my dying day, a phone call that is forever etched into my soul as a mother. What the doctors found on the scan was beyond anything they expected. Our prayers had been answered. The tumor had shrunk, not a little, not incidentally, but by 22%. Shrinkage can happen after embolization, he said, but not this drastically. Especially not in a child so small and not in four weeks. The doctor exclaimed, “We have just witnessed a Christmas miracle. Surgery is no longer needed. Everyone here is beyond shocked. Y’all go home. Merry Christmas.” I collapsed forward and sobbed, the first true sobs I had allowed myself since hearing the word tumor. It was as if God peeled back a curtain and gave me a glimpse of the masterpiece He had been painting all along. Every delay, every complication, every terrifying moment had been part of the miracle. If we had rushed into surgery, we would not have seen what God was about to do. The tumor needed time to shrink. Gideon needed time to heal. And we needed time to witness the sovereignty of a God whose timing is never off, not by even a second. I will never forget that moment. I saw the faithfulness of God written all over my son’s life. The miracle was not just in the MRI. It was in the way God held us through every step that led up to it. A miracle did not end the journey. It transformed it. The tumor did not disappear entirely that day, and it has not completely vanished yet. But from that moment on, God has continued to write a story that leaves even the specialists speechless.
Today, we travel to Dallas Children’s Hospital every three months for MRI scans and neurology appointments. Each visit feels like its own mountain—the waiting rooms, the familiar hallways, the quiet hum of machines. Yet every single scan since that day has shown continued shrinkage. Gideon’s neurosurgeon recently said, “It is barely there,” as he reviewed our latest MRI results. A tumor that once threatened his life has been reduced to a faint shadow, an echo of what once was. The vascular surgeon, who performed the embolization, has been discussing Gideon’s case in Brazil, and the neurosurgeon has presented it to the Dallas Children’s tumor board. They both use it as an example of extraordinary, unexpected healing. The medical team remains stunned. They talk about it with awe in their voices, using words like “unprecedented” and “incredible.” And then there is Gideon himself—the boy who once struggled to roll over and battled developmental delays, who worked with physical therapists for months. Today, he has officially graduated from physical therapy and is completely caught up developmentally. He is determined, joyful, and wild in the best way. He is hilarious and intentional and has never met a stranger. He shines with a light that could only come from the Lord. I pray every day that he continues to be a light on a hill, and as he grows, he will share his personal testimony and the Lord’s sovereignty wherever he goes. Everyone who meets him loves him, and I believe with all my heart he is living out the beautiful plan God placed over his life long before he was formed. He is our miracle in motion. People sometimes ask if we are “out of the woods.” The truth is, we still walk this journey one scan, one appointment, one prayer at a time. The tumor is still there, tiny and faint, but present. A chapter has ended, but our story is still being written. We do not walk in fear. We walk in remembrance.
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