Tomorrow Gabrielle will turn 17. This evening brings back a lot of memories. The night before she was born, John and I stayed up late into the night talking about what our lives would be like after our daughter was born, our dream was about to happen. After a long, hard and painful pregnancy of constant contractions and over 13 weeks of bed rest it was all about to come to an end as we welcomed our daughter into the world and we would just go back to our normal living with our baby, or at least that's what we thought.
I wont go into the actual events of the day of her birth but upon her arrival at 10:43pm she was blue, limp like a rag doll, her legs just floped over her head, she wasn't making a sound, the only life in her was a heartbeat, apgar score of 1. My doctor tired to comfort me with her words, "She is gonna be alright."
As a swarm of nurses were called down from what we would later learn as the NICU, her words brought no comfort, I knew in my heart something was tradgically wrong. She was rushed out of the doctors arms into a slew of nurses. They "worked" on her. I could hear and see the frantic pace with which they tried to get her to breath. And then, even today as clear and comforting as it was back then, the LORD GOD spoke. He so clearly and tenderly spoke into the depths of my heart........
His word.........
His soothing word.......
His balm......
His word that brings a peace that surpasses all understanding.......
"Will you trust her with Me?"
Without hesitation my heart leaped back, "Yes LORD, how could I not. I have already surrendered my entire life into Your hands."
That was it.
I had, we had no idea the road we were suddenly jerked onto nor where it would take us. Even today, in the face of fear and the unknown, all the sacrifice, all the pain, all the joy, those words -- "Will you trust her with Me?" continues to ring true, they continue to bring His comfort, His peace into the present. I couldn't walk this road yesterday, today or tommorrow without His grip on our lives.
Most of the time my flesh wants to scream --
This is not fair, This doesn't make sense, I don't want to walk this road anymore, I don't want to move one. more. step. forward.
I think of His word to me on that very hard January night in the delivery room, "Will you trust her with Me?" and again I respond just as I did that night, "Yes LORD, I trust You." And in the place of trust comes rest, not rest from the storm but rest IN the storm.
As we do have to move forward because that's how time works, I will continue to hold on to His spoken and written words, to me, to my daughter, to my family. I do not know what the future holds, He does. I know what the doctors say and I know what my God, Creator of heaven and earth, Creator of Gabrielle, my Creator and what His word says.........
"I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matthew 28:20
"the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of
the year to its end." Deuteronomy 11:12
"Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book
they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there
were none of them." Psalm 139:16
In Him...... I will put my trust,
In Him...... I will rest.
