”…We were like those who dream, then our mouth was filled
with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting. ...”
[Psalm 126:1-2]
The intercom sounded and my name was called—I picked up the
phone and life paused. There has been an
accident— “so sorry”, came the deep voice of the surgeon, “a main artery has
been cut, we have called in a specialist.”
Where does the heart
go when words are spoken and the unthinkable draws close? There must be a special veil that is drawn
across the heart of a mother, when such information is given across the wires
and as factual, as precisely as a temperature reading.
I stood there not really grasping the words but only to think to
call her husband and for a moment use the action to distance my heart from reality;
our daughter’s life was in danger. The
waiting room became vague the noise slipped back as if no longer part of the
physical environment. Numb to the
obvious we waited—my sister and I—for
such a time as this she had been sent on ‘holiday’, four thousand miles, for just a visit. As always throughout my life the awesome
Sovereignty and watch-care of God was being displayed, by her very presence and
when I needed my sister the most she was beside me!
A simple surgery—growing from deep desire and longing—to
become pregnant, to birth a child, to have a family. From the beginning of time God ordained it, sown in all of creation this desire for procreation cannot be denied, no misfortune can snuff-out the hope or diminish the dream. To bear a child, to grow a family, to extend life. Why now, why such agony of fruit from such a Godly desire.
There are no answers
in times of the valley of the shadow of death only hope, only desperate cries
for help and healing. This was not the
first attempt to ‘make the impossible possible’—many others had taken this road
and lived to birth a family like a hen gathering her chicks beneath her
wings. But for our daughter this attempt
would prove to be the last—no more man-made attempts, no more experiments. If this Sovereign Creator wanted to fulfill
His Word, that man would procreate, then it would be done by Him alone! This was the verdict and this the faith. Not my will but thine be done.
Time went by, faith at times lagging but never far away— God
holds fast to the heart and the heart holds fast the promise of God. A few years pass—the home is made ready—a
big home with room to play and to provide a nursery—faith lives. I watched as hope struggled within the one
who sought to stay strong and believe the miracle would come…and it did!
Not as man would think but as God had planned—conceived in
less than love a little one was growing in the womb of one of no desire—but God
had a plan. Divine connections were made
at the funeral of a friend of a friend and the plan of God moved into
action. Seven weeks later in a far-away
place this miracle child was born and moments later placed in the arms of
desire of our daughter. —The dream had come true! What a gift of absolute joy. At that moment a family was born, hope was
fulfilled and the fight of faith was over for this miracle.
