One year ago, I was living in a different world. It looked much the same as it does today, but it was completely different.
One year ago, my wife and my children and I were enjoying the normalcy of a regular life here in Indiana. There were challenges, but we were living our normal lives, enjoying our friends and our church, and our God.
It was Sunday, April 6 – the end of a long day after being with an out-of-town guest. We got home and Terry looked at me and said, “Scott, something’s wrong.” She was pregnant with our fifth child; she was in her 23rd week of pregnancy. (We had lost our fourth child a few years earlier at about the same point.) She knew something was wrong.
After a call to the doctor and a night’s rest, things hadn’t changed. After we got to the doctor’s office and the initial exam began, so did our roller coaster ride.
The short story is that our baby, Esther Hope, was born on Tuesday of that week. She was just 23 weeks and 4 days old in her development.
We began a journey of 114 days in the NICU. I told someone just last night that it was on me and Terry’s wedding anniversary, July 30, that Esther came home. There is nothing wrong with her. She is living proof of God’s help and power.
I think back on those beginning days of our long journey through the “tunnel” while Esther teetered on the brink of survival in the isolette in the NICU. We were bewildered. Our heads were spinning. We weren’t supposed to be here, I told myself. This had to be a mistake. This wasn’t supposed to happen in a “normal” life.
But, indeed, it does happen.
There are so many things that we learned through that turbulent, strange time. But, I believe the one most important thing that I have learned through it is this:
No matter what happens to me, or my children, or my wife, and no matter what circumstances boil over into my life, the single most important thing I need is to be with my Heavenly Father.
Even when I wake up at the beginning of each new day, I can’t see any further into it than where I am right then. I have no idea what it will hold. I found out this past year, that the one place where I can stand up is in the security of my relationship with Christ in God. If I don’t have this one place together, nothing else keep me from flying apart.
But, when I do have this relationship right, and current, then it is enough to sustain me and hold me together.
So many times I had to just rest there. I’ll never forget the moment this past year, when Esther was at her worst, pneumonia, sepsis, kidney failure, edema. Everything looked so bad. Every doctor and nurse had bad news. There were no smiles, no re-assurances. It was in that worst possible time that God said to me, “Do you trust me?”
In my mind, I stammered, “Yes, I trust You.”
Then He said to me, “Then why are you all tied up in knots inside?”
The truth was, I WAS all tied in knots inside. Everything my eyes and ears took in said that there was no hope for our baby.
God then said to me, “How would you feel if your children came to you for help, and you were able to help, and even as you were helping them, they were anxious and afraid and uncertain of YOU and your love for them?”
It hit me hard. “I wouldn’t like that at all,” I answered.
“How do you think I feel about it?” He asked me.
“I’m sorry, God. I trust you.” And with that, I relaxed and melted into Him. I slept better that night than I had in a long time. I had to make that decision to just trust a few times over in the following days. But, I rested in that trust.
I’m really not sure how it all happened. But, I know God led me through that lesson – like a wise professor taking a keen interest in a prized student. He hovered over me and whispered to me and led me in the learning process.
So….really, this is a different world today than the one I was living in one year ago. Thank God that He is God, and I am not.
Even if there were two Apple grave stones out in the Noblesville cemetary today instead of one, God would still be good, and would still be God. I just need to be with Him.
Earlier today, I heard little Esther belly laughing. The sound of her laughter is sweeter than any other. It’s the sound of joy and hope.
I’m so thankful for what He has done, and I’m so thankful that He could teach me through all that has happened. For what lies ahead, I know that I just need to be with Him.
Recent Comments