Diabetes forced him from pilot training in 2007, so he fell back on his degree and became a mechanical engineer instead.
He and his wife, Brittany, yearned to start a family and grew anxious when a child didn’t come in their time, yet God eventually blessed them with three daughters in his time.
But hardest of all was handing over control of the life of their first daughter, Sydney, when she was born with a congenital condition that caused dangerous urinary retention in her kidneys. A transplant would be in her future. “I didn’t think I was a control freak,” Colton said. “I thought I was very comfortable with letting God take command. But when you have a kid, it’s difficult to give up control.”
So, in 2012 they postponed Brittany’s plans to earn a law degree and uprooted themselves from Hawaii to find a new home near world-class medical care. That search brought them to Half Moon Bay, near talented medical teams at Stanford University and University of California San Francisco. And they prayed.
Upon arrival, Sydney’s condition continued to worsen. After pair of surgeries to ease her overloaded kidneys and a year on peritoneal dialysis, the time for a new kidney arrived. The donor was her mother. Colton felt very alone as his wife and daughter went into surgery that morning, and once again he handed it over to God. Scripture helped sustain him.
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26 (NIV)
Four years later, the transplant continues to hold up. And a second surgery at UCSF in 2015 has restored Sydney’s normal bladder function. They also have welcomed daughters Sophia and Scarlett into their family. Sydney’s health continues to have ups and downs and one day she will need another transplant. But Colton hands those worries over to God.
The lesson? “Have faith,” Colton said. “Don’t be afraid to lose control. Give the control to Christ.”
