Gift of Grace

       Weary.  I stand at the kitchen sink.  Hot water scalds my fingers, the sponge blithely moves across each piece of grime on the pots and pans.  Numb.  I feel numb.  Can I even feel?  How can I feel numbness?  I don't think I've felt much of anything yet.  There hasn't been time.

       But I felt it that night.  When they looked at my tiniest one in the ER and so casually talked to her in their baby voices, "You're too little and too cute to have CHF, aren't you?"  CHF.  CHF, what?  Congestive Heart Failure?!  No one had said those words to us.  But they kept on saying it in passing as if it were a hangnail.  Oh, the throat constricting panic as I clung to her less than 9 pound body.  The agony as we waited in the room to find out the diagnosis behind her swollen heart that we had only just discovered hours earlier.  I crumbled, outwardly and inwardly, but she showed her two and a half month old strength as I stood her on my knees and her face shone with happy pride.  My broken heart broke more and tears streamed down my face as our eyes locked and I tried to hold a smile.  Could it be so?  Could this child, who looked so like the other three and who beamed with joy, could she really have a failing heart?  Would it fail completely?  And when?  And how-how could we bear it.  How could I?  How could she?    

       It was a new place for me.  A place I'd never been nor imagined I'd be.  A place no one hopes to find themselves in.  But it was real.  Happening.  It wasn't going away.  Soon, we would hear the diagnosis and nothing could change it and it might be horrible.  For the first time, one of my babies might not be okay.  Suddenly, all my past mother worries seemed so silly.  The ultrasound technician arrived.  I retreated to the bathroom, not ready yet to hear or see or know.  Head against the wall, arms held high I begged God for the life of this little one.  

                  "She is Yours!  You created her.  You know the number of her days.  Oh God!  Let them be many with me!  I want her!  Dear God, let me keep her longer!!!  She-this precious gift-please let me keep her!  You gave her, please don't take her away.  I promise I will raise her to know you and your Word, Lord.  God?!  Please say yes."

       And in his grace, he quickly answered my prayer.  When I returned to the room, the ultrasound technician had just shared with my husband that her condition, a VSD, was one of the most common heart conditions to be had and that many times these holes will close on their own without intervention.  Hallelujah!  She was admitted that night.  And thus began our unexpected journey into the world of medications and syringes and stethoscopes and doctors and therapists and hospitals and procedures and decisions and tubes and bottles and machines and poles and noises and scheduling and nausea and vomit and more laundry than ever!

      So I look at the photos on the wall as I wash.  Past times, more simple.  And I think of my bed and the sleep that will one day come.  And I feel sad along with my weariness.  It's not as I had hoped.  My poor, poor baby.  So tiny, so sweet, so innocently sick.  And I want to quit!  Can I even go on?
  
       I glance over at the exersaucer where she plays and am surprised to see her fully attentive to me.  Her little head is bent down so she can see my face through the slats of the dining room chair between us.  She is at full attention, full delight, just waiting for me to meet her gaze.  And as soon as I do, she smiles and jumps and I smile back and my heart is filled.  How can I not go on when this little one needs me so?  What a gift of grace!  What a child of delight!  She is here!  She is alive!  
       Thank you, Lord!