When we arrived for our 20-week ultrasound on November 6, 2008, (I can't believe that that was almost one year ago already!) we were thrilled at the thought of learning our precious baby's gender. The suspense was killing us! Soon, our excitement turned to bewilderment and fear as we learned that something was very likely wrong with our little one. After a painful amniocentesis and lots of blood work, we went home (Why did the doctors let us drive ourselves home?!) to wait for the results, knowing that it could take up to two weeks to hear any news. We went home and just cried and prayed for our little one. Surely, we thought, nothing is wrong!
God was very merciful to allow us to get the results the next day. Ben was at work when the doctor called me. She told me that we should both be there to hear the news. I knew this meant that the news was bad. Luckily, my sister-in-law drove us this time-- we learned our lesson yesterday about driving when getting terrible news! The doctor told us about the baby's disorder, 69-XXY triploidy, and that there was absolutely no chance of the baby surviving. In fact, it was very rare for a baby to live as long as mine had (so we should expect the baby to die very soon). Amidst the bad news, I remember thinking, "It's a boy!", but this wasn't nearly as exciting as I had thought it would be a few days ago. She told us that most women with this diagnosis choose to terminate the pregnancy. She encouraged us to also choose termination because it is often too unbearable for most women to walk around with a baby who you know will die at any moment. I remember just trying to focus and process all of the medical information she was giving-- my biology degree came in very handy! But as I was just trying so hard to focus and think amidst the terrible news, I actually found myself considering the termination. In those moments, I was giving up on my baby, accepting the news as best I could at the time. It was like the baby wasn't a baby anymore, just a problem, a medical condition. In my right mind, I would never consider abortion, but I remember in that moment it seemed to make some sense. Thank God that Ben was there, in a slightly better frame of mind than me, to say that we would not choose "termination". We discussed what to expect with regards to going into labor, and then headed home. What a terrible rest of the day! We had prayed that this would turn out to be nothing-- and it turned out to be lethal!
That evening was a miserable one. I basically decided that I would try to no longer think about my baby. I would try to forget that I was pregnant. Yesterday, I was sad that my belly was so small-- it was proof that my baby was too small and possibly sick. Today, I thought my belly looked too big-- a reminder that I was pregnant. I felt like a ticking time bomb. I could go into labor at any moment, and expected it to happen very soon. I just wanted it to all be over. Forget it. "I take it back, God, I don't want to be pregnant anymore!" I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone reading this, but that's the best way I can think of to describe it.
God was again very merciful to give us sleep that night. The next morning, we woke up rested, and sat on the couch to eat our breakfast. Ben checked his email and saw that we had received a long email from a good friend of ours. Our friend told us of how he and his wife were praying for us, and he reminded us to not lose hope that God could heal our baby:
I am not so bold as to say that I know that the Lord wants to heal your son. But I am so bold as to say that He can, and that He just might. He takes pleasure in using the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. He laughs at the wisdom of the world because it is as foolishness to Him. He knows how to give good gifts to His children. And He demonstrates his divine nature and His eternal power so clearly through all of His creation that all men are without excuse. In light of knowing this, I stand as Mordecai did with Esther saying, "who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
He also encouraged us to have the elders of our church anoint me and pray over our little one. I hadn't even considered that!! At this point, I had given up hope. I had taken the doctor's words about our baby as the definite truth-- he will die, and he will die very soon. But God is the one with the final word. How did I forget?? It's amazing how you can sort of lose your mind in crazy circumstances. The words of our friend really shook me. But I wasn't sure what God actually wanted for our baby. I knew that God was totally capable of healing him, but I didn't know if that was actually His will. I wondered, if I pray for healing without totally expecting God to heal my baby completely, am I lacking faith? After failing to drive a demon out of a boy, Jesus' disciples asked Jesus, "Why couldn't we drive it out?" Jesus replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, "Move from here to here," and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you," (Matt. 17:19-20). Would God heal him if I didn't pray absolutely expecting healing? Would He refuse to heal my baby if I thought that his disorder might still take his life? What do faith and hope look like in this situation??
We talked to another good friend about these questions later that day. I told him that I knew that God was able, but I didn't know if He was willing to heal my baby. And I told him that that scared me-- that it would be my fault if my baby died because of my lack of faith. He assured us that that is faith-- knowing that God can do it. We don't have to know if He will, just that He can. Our friend told us to give ourselves room to feel what we feel. If I felt one day like I just wanted this all to be over, that's ok. And if I felt another day that I desperately wanted my baby to be healed and survive (as scary as waiting for that without knowing would be), that's ok, too. I didn't need to worry so much about how I was feeling. I also didn't need to worry about how I prayed. I just needed to pray.
I felt relief. I could feel however I needed to. I could take a deep breath, and let God be God. He wasn't going to trick me, or wait for me to not have "enough" faith so He could take my baby. He was actually trustworthy. I was aware that I was totally out of control, and He was totally in control. From then on I prayed like crazy! I prayed all the time for healing. And Ben and I decided that we would do whatever we could to enjoy our little one while we still had him. (Little did we know that against the odds, we would still have him for 16 and a half more weeks!) We named him and I decided to continue talking to him, reading the Bible to him, and enjoy feeling every one of his movements. We prepared our home for him just in case he would survive, even if we would only survive for just a few hours or days.
The funny thing was, throughout the rest of my pregnancy, I never again wanted it all to be over. I wanted Elam to make it as long as possible. I hoped that I would go well past my due date. But even if I did have days feeling hopeless, that would have been ok.
So, how does any of this relate to the book of Daniel? In chapter 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are standing before King Nebuchadnezzar, facing a horrible death because they are refusing to worship the idol he has set up. Verses 17 and 18 say, "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up" (emphasis mine). Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had faith in God-- not because they knew God would save them from the furnace. Instead, they knew that God was able to save them from it, and that faith was enough. They chose to trust and follow Him even through their scary, uncertain future, knowing that He may allow them to die a terrible death in a huge, roaring fire. But He is still good, and we can still trust him even as we walk into a fiery furnace, knowing that either he will deliver us from it, through it, or by it into His arms.
We can't force God to do what we want by having the "faith" or expectation that He will do what we want. It's easy to misinterpret James 5:14 - 15, thinking that all we have to do is pray by "faith" (we absolutely expect healing) and God will save the sick. That leaves it up to us, like we're the ones in control. There's no formula. God has a plan that's better than what we can imagine. Sometimes that includes some pain and suffering. And that pain and suffering will be redeemed to be something far greater than we could ever plan or imagine. For whatever reason, God decided to take Elam rather than healing him. And losing Elam will be redeemed for something indescribably good. We couldn't force God to heal him by praying just right. Learning that was very freeing for me.
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