Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Even The Hard Things

I still remember sitting in the pump room.  It was the early morning hours of the 28th and I had been by Shawn's bedside since around five that previous afternoon.  The doctors urged me to take a break, assuring me Shawn was stable enough for me to be gone for a short time.  I reluctantly went, knowing my body needed the release, also aware that Clayton needed me to keep making milk.  It was the first time I had been alone since being told my baby would die.  I sat there in the quiet of the room, listening to the ho-hum of the breast pump.

Making milk for babies who were too sick to even contemplate eating.

Making milk for a baby who wouldn't be alive in just a few short hours.  
And as much as I held onto the faith that God could heal him at any moment, I started visualizing my son's funeral.  How in the world do you go about planning a funeral for your child?

The one you just welcomed into the world?

The one you haven't even gotten to know yet?

And to this day, the devil plays tricks on me.  Tells me that since I dared to go there in my mind that night, my faith cracked, and in turn the Lord allowed Shawn to die.  Talk about mind games!  I guess as a parent, you just wonder over and over "WHAT COULD HAVE I DONE DIFFERENTLY?"  I look back at those moments and wonder if the Lord thought I was giving up?  I suppose it was the same battle I fight with Clayton's healing, just on a more acute level.  

I cycle through this emotional guilt and then my brain puts on the brakes--I KNOW the Lord works in higher ways than this!  As my friend Karen reminded me:  "Romans 8:28 is STILL IN THE BOOK."  All things, [even the hard things] are working together for the good of His people!  And what a celebration it will be when we see the good of sufferings like these revealed!    

I guess my time alone that night/morning was what you'd call a gut-check.  I could either simply collapse under the emotional weight of it all, or I could go make the most of what I had been given.  I had to trust the Lord would carry us through.  I left that pump room determined to love on my son as much as possible in the time I still had with him.  And that is what I did.  

No comments: