“Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come.
Tis grace has brought me safe thus far. And grace will lead me home.”
One of the verses of John Newton’s timeless hymn has become more meaningful to me in recent days. After fifty weeks in Seattle Children’s Hospital, our infant grandson was discharged and went home for the first time. This weekend our miracle grandson celebrates his first birthday. One year of life in the books! And what a year it has been. And all because of God’s amazing grace!
Those who follow my posts on social media know that Baby Niko entered the world unexpectantly on November 14, 2025. Because our daughter was exhibiting signs of preeclampsia and her baby’s heartrate was dropping, an emergency c-section was required.
Niko Gregory Moore arrived ten weeks early at Overlake Hospital in Bellevue. His birth date was the day before his mother’s thirty-fifth birthday. Weighing less than two pounds and with a heart defect (TOF) that was identified early in Lauren’s pregnancy, Niko looked so tiny and vulnerable. To be honest, I didn’t expect he would survive.
Baby Niko was immediately transferred to Children’s Hospital in Seattle where it was discovered he had other serious issues resulting from his premature delivery. As I looked into the high-tech incubator in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, I pictured this miniature human being held in God’s arms.
That image of the Creator cradling my youngest daughter’s little boy inspired me to write a song for Niko. As a proud Papou, I had previously composed a song for both of my granddaughters when they were born, so I was determined to write one for my grandson as well. Finding a piece of scratch paper, I wrote…
Held in God’s arms you are cradled in love, nourished and nurtured with grace from above. You are the one that Papou’s thinking of, Niko my precious grandson.
That became my signature interaction with the little guy. Whenever I would visit Niko in the NICU, I would sing these simple lyrics to him. In spite of the fact that I lack perfect pitch, my daughter said my song had a calming effect on her son.
In the first couple months of Niko’s hospitalization, I began to realize just how much our family would depend on God’s grace. The baby’s slow but steady progress was complicated by a series of unexpected setbacks. We depended on the dedicated staff of doctors and nurses to care for the youngest member of our extended family. But we depended on our loving Heavenly Father and His amazing grace even more.
After three-hundred-and-fifty-one days at Children’s Hospital, Niko was discharged. Because he is dependent on a tracheostomy and a ventilator to breathe as well as a feeding tube, our grandson requires overnight in-home nursing care. But his being at home is a major milestone on a marathon that continues. It is cause for celebration.
The day of his discharge my daughter asked me to make a video of leaving his room at the hospital. The procession down the hallway was punctuated by a host of therapists, doctors and nurses who activated portable bubble machines as they called out best wishes to a little boy they had grown to love over eleven-plus months.
As mother, father and son left the hospital room for the last time, I noticed that below Baby Niko’s name was the first name of the nurse on-duty that day. I did a double-take. The nurse discharging him home was Grace.
How appropriate, I thought. A nurse called Grace cared for Niko his last day at Children’s. But God’s grace had cared for him the entire time he had been sequestered in that life-saving facility.
The same is true for us as well. God’s amazing grace is at work behind the scenes all the while we are navigating the dangers, toils and snares of this life. And that same grace will one day lead us Home.