I am so pleased to share the letter and story below with you. My friend Marie Hatcher and her foundation, Matthew’s Hearts of Hope, are doing such tremendous things to help children with congenital heart defects.
I have written about Marie, her son Matthew, and Matthew’s Hearts of Hope in a previous blog, as I find her and the work the foundation is doing, on the medical, compassionate and legislative fronts, truly remarkable and inspiring.
Matthew, a good buddy of our 5-year-old son John’s, will undergo his third complicated heart surgery on Monday, November 10, the day this blog will post. Please pray for Matthew and the medical team that will be caring for him. I know Marie and her family will be so grateful.
Marie is a mother, wife, nurse, friend, community supporter, person of great faith and an idea generator. Marie makes things happen in ways that she feels are touched by God and by the prayers of many.
You can read in her letter here about one element of the work of her foundation–awarding research grants to pediatric cardiology fellows developing more effective ways to detect and correct CHD.
Another project of the foundation is to provide Hug a Heart Pillows to children with CHD while they are in the hospital. Can’t you just picture the joy each child feels when he or she is presented with a colorful, soft, cozy pillow in the shape of a heart?
As I think about Matthew’s upcoming surgery, about the children who are helped by Matthew’s Hearts of Hope and about the minds and hands caring for children with medical conditions, this quotation from an unknown author comes to mind: “Sometimes hope seems as unreal as the angel beside you. But both are there.”
In this, I know Marie Hatcher believes profoundly. She shows hope in all she does.
