LifeSite co-founder John-Henry Westen asks for prayers for daughter

September 28, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Today, I want to share with you a rather personal story involving my family. I don’t ever do this, but feel moved to humbly ask for your prayers at this moment. 

Nearly two weeks ago, my 17-year-old daughter, Mary-Catherine, collapsed in the driveway of our home after a rather stressful event. Afterwards, she experienced a lot of paralysis. Eventually, she began hallucinating, so we took her to the hospital.

Mary-Catherine was soon transported to a different hospital. On the way, the ambulance turned its lights on and sped up. We only later learned that paramedics thought they lost her due to her not being able to breathe and not being able to locate a pulse.

After many, many, investigations, tests, and scans, the doctors consulted and said they think the diagnosis is Hashimoto’s encephalitis, which involves the swelling of the brain.

Mary-Catherine is a sweet and lovely girl and is in need of many prayers. I know there are many people suffering in the world today, especially from COVID-19. 

I want you to know that everyone at LifeSite prays for you, our readers, and that many of you pray for us, too. It’s an amazing thing to keep one another in prayer.

I wanted to say thank you to the many friends who have supported us through this and who are praying already. I hope we can storm heaven with some more prayers together. 

I was with Mary-Catherine in the hospital on Sunday and we talked about offering up her suffering in union with Christ on the cross.

One of the things that has really carried me through this, and I’m sure my wife through this as well, is knowing that all things work for good for those who love him.

Jesus wants the best for us, but only He knows what that best is and that our best might involve a lot of suffering, as it does right now for my daughter. 

I want to say to all of you who might be suffering in various ways from various things that we are praying for you. Let’s pray for one another. Let’s remember that God never sends us crosses we can’t carry.

We are all called to suffer in this life, to unite our sufferings with Christ, and therefore to join Him forever after and happiness in the next life. May God bless you.

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Follow John-Henry

John-Henry is the co-founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com. He and his wife Dianne have eight children and they live in the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, Canada.

He has spoken at conferences and retreats, and appeared on radio and television throughout the world. John-Henry founded the Rome Life Forum, an annual strategy meeting for life, faith and family leaders worldwide. He is a board member of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family. He is a consultant to Canada’s largest pro-life organization Campaign Life Coalition, and serves on the executive of the Ontario branch of the organization. He has run three times for political office in the province of Ontario representing the Family Coalition Party.

John-Henry earned an MA from the University of Toronto in School and Child Clinical Psychology and an Honours BA from York University in Psychology.