The phone rang in my office and I answered only to hear the distraught voice of my wife on the other end of the phone. She was at the doctor’s office and she had some bad news. "The doctor says I have toxemia," she said in a sad voice. "My blood pressure is elevated and I have a higher than normal amount of protein in my urine".
"What does that mean?" I responded.
"It means that I may have to stay home from work. Dr Braid said that toxemia is fairly common, but it can be serious. I have to come back next week for another test. Will you come with me?" she asked in that voice that I could never refuse.
"Of course," I replied. Surely the doctor has made a mistake. Or if he hasn't, the Lord will heal her, I thought to myself. After all, it was earlier in the year that we had become aware of the millions of babies who were being aborted in America each year. God wouldn't let anything happen to our baby, I reasoned. He would remember how Woody had changed gynecologists after discovering that her former gynecologist performed abortions. Surely the Lord was on our side.
Little did we know that our baby, who at that time was young enough to be legally aborted in every state in our nation, would soon enter the world nearly three months before his expected birth.
The week went by fast and we found ourselves in the doctor’s office examining the new test results. The prior week we had made an effort to eat a good diet, eliminate stress, and pray. Pray for God's will, pray for strength, and pray for positive test results. And in the back of my mind, I thought that certainly this would be the time that God would come through. The test results would come back normal, the doctor and nurses would be astounded, everyone would call it a "miracle", and God would be glorified. If all we needed was faith the size of one mustard seed, I had plenty of seed for a whole orchard of mustard trees.
But the results from the tests were not good: "Excessive water retention, too much protein in the urine, and an elevated blood pressure," Doctor Braid would tell us - all classic signs of toxemia.
Doctor Braid made a decision to have Woody and the baby undergo a stress test. This is where the baby's movement is measured over a period of time while its heartbeat is being monitored. There in the labor and delivery section of the hospital we watched as needles, similar to the ones you see scientists use to measure earthquakes, made their way up and down a long strip of paper. Added to that was the strange sound of the monitor which amplified the squish of the baby's heartbeat into the room. The test seemed to go on indefinitely only to be interrupted by an occasional nurse coming in to check Woody's blood pressure and urine.
Everything seemed to indicate the same thing. The baby was doing fine but Woody's blood pressure and protein output was at a dangerous level. Dr. Braid informed us that Woody would have to be admitted into the hospital. Admitted? Up until now the seriousness of the illness hadn't shaken us. But now, with a hospital stay slated for Woody, we were suddenly sobered with the reality that our idea of the miraculous intervention of God was not materializing in the manner in which we had envisioned.
The hospital stay was quite easy as hospital stays go. Since the symptoms of Toxemia don't generally cause a patient to feel ill and don't require any rigorous tests or medication, the hardest part of the stay was keeping Woody tied down. But she managed to stay put and after watching the monitoring for a week, our faith was running in high gear once again. When the doctor decided to let her go home, we were of course thrilled. Dr. Braid, however, made it quite clear that she wasn't any better than when she went in, she just hadn't shown any signs of getting worse. She had to stay in bed and she would have to be monitored several times a day.
At this point, all we expected was good news. "We are good people after all, and bad things happen only to bad people," we thought to ourselves. And we received more good news that week when I learned that my company was going to allow me to bring my work home so I could stay with Woody.
Finally, everything was falling into place, we thought to ourselves. God must have been allowing Woody to be sick so I could spend some time with her prior to the arrival of the baby. And while this was true, our understanding of the time and the circumstances surrounding Christopher's birth were not His. And yet in His patient way, He continued to lead us in preparation toward His purposes, His ways, His time. Little were we aware that the time that seemed so distant was standing on our doorstep.
But before the door was opened, one last event was to occur which God would use as a final preparation in our lives. It was a national tragedy that occurred during the first week I worked at home. On the Tuesday prior to Christopher's birth, I woke up early in the morning and began working on the project I was doing for work. I had heard that the Space Shuttle Columbia was to launch that morning, and as the time drew near for the launch, I took a break from my work and turned on the television. At this time in our nation's space program, shuttle launches were a common occurrence; something that most of us felt could never fail. But as I looked on that cold January morning, I watched in horror as the Shuttle Columbia exploded shortly after liftoff.
I remember sitting there in disbelief as NASA and the television networks scrambled to try to determine what happened. Were there any survivors? What went wrong? How could this happen to that young teacher and all those astronauts? Details started off very sketchy but as the footage was replayed over and over, the reality of the tragedy gripped the heart of our nation. And in the eyes and the hearts of the family and friends of the crew who stared at the sky in disbelief was that single question which is asked so often in the midst of a tragedy, "Why?"
Of course anyone who has faced a tragedy knows that the answer to this question often goes unanswered. We are often left to trust and believe that God knows the answer and will provide the strength for us to endure.
My favorite book is The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boon. In that book Corrie recalls the following experience she had as a small child.
Boom, Corrie Ten, John L. Sherrill, and Elizabeth Sherrill. The Hiding Place. Washington Depot, CT: Chosen, 1971. Print.
"What does that mean?" I responded.
"It means that I may have to stay home from work. Dr Braid said that toxemia is fairly common, but it can be serious. I have to come back next week for another test. Will you come with me?" she asked in that voice that I could never refuse.
"Of course," I replied. Surely the doctor has made a mistake. Or if he hasn't, the Lord will heal her, I thought to myself. After all, it was earlier in the year that we had become aware of the millions of babies who were being aborted in America each year. God wouldn't let anything happen to our baby, I reasoned. He would remember how Woody had changed gynecologists after discovering that her former gynecologist performed abortions. Surely the Lord was on our side.
Little did we know that our baby, who at that time was young enough to be legally aborted in every state in our nation, would soon enter the world nearly three months before his expected birth.
The week went by fast and we found ourselves in the doctor’s office examining the new test results. The prior week we had made an effort to eat a good diet, eliminate stress, and pray. Pray for God's will, pray for strength, and pray for positive test results. And in the back of my mind, I thought that certainly this would be the time that God would come through. The test results would come back normal, the doctor and nurses would be astounded, everyone would call it a "miracle", and God would be glorified. If all we needed was faith the size of one mustard seed, I had plenty of seed for a whole orchard of mustard trees.
But the results from the tests were not good: "Excessive water retention, too much protein in the urine, and an elevated blood pressure," Doctor Braid would tell us - all classic signs of toxemia.
Doctor Braid made a decision to have Woody and the baby undergo a stress test. This is where the baby's movement is measured over a period of time while its heartbeat is being monitored. There in the labor and delivery section of the hospital we watched as needles, similar to the ones you see scientists use to measure earthquakes, made their way up and down a long strip of paper. Added to that was the strange sound of the monitor which amplified the squish of the baby's heartbeat into the room. The test seemed to go on indefinitely only to be interrupted by an occasional nurse coming in to check Woody's blood pressure and urine.
Everything seemed to indicate the same thing. The baby was doing fine but Woody's blood pressure and protein output was at a dangerous level. Dr. Braid informed us that Woody would have to be admitted into the hospital. Admitted? Up until now the seriousness of the illness hadn't shaken us. But now, with a hospital stay slated for Woody, we were suddenly sobered with the reality that our idea of the miraculous intervention of God was not materializing in the manner in which we had envisioned.
The hospital stay was quite easy as hospital stays go. Since the symptoms of Toxemia don't generally cause a patient to feel ill and don't require any rigorous tests or medication, the hardest part of the stay was keeping Woody tied down. But she managed to stay put and after watching the monitoring for a week, our faith was running in high gear once again. When the doctor decided to let her go home, we were of course thrilled. Dr. Braid, however, made it quite clear that she wasn't any better than when she went in, she just hadn't shown any signs of getting worse. She had to stay in bed and she would have to be monitored several times a day.
At this point, all we expected was good news. "We are good people after all, and bad things happen only to bad people," we thought to ourselves. And we received more good news that week when I learned that my company was going to allow me to bring my work home so I could stay with Woody.
Finally, everything was falling into place, we thought to ourselves. God must have been allowing Woody to be sick so I could spend some time with her prior to the arrival of the baby. And while this was true, our understanding of the time and the circumstances surrounding Christopher's birth were not His. And yet in His patient way, He continued to lead us in preparation toward His purposes, His ways, His time. Little were we aware that the time that seemed so distant was standing on our doorstep.
But before the door was opened, one last event was to occur which God would use as a final preparation in our lives. It was a national tragedy that occurred during the first week I worked at home. On the Tuesday prior to Christopher's birth, I woke up early in the morning and began working on the project I was doing for work. I had heard that the Space Shuttle Columbia was to launch that morning, and as the time drew near for the launch, I took a break from my work and turned on the television. At this time in our nation's space program, shuttle launches were a common occurrence; something that most of us felt could never fail. But as I looked on that cold January morning, I watched in horror as the Shuttle Columbia exploded shortly after liftoff.
I remember sitting there in disbelief as NASA and the television networks scrambled to try to determine what happened. Were there any survivors? What went wrong? How could this happen to that young teacher and all those astronauts? Details started off very sketchy but as the footage was replayed over and over, the reality of the tragedy gripped the heart of our nation. And in the eyes and the hearts of the family and friends of the crew who stared at the sky in disbelief was that single question which is asked so often in the midst of a tragedy, "Why?"
Of course anyone who has faced a tragedy knows that the answer to this question often goes unanswered. We are often left to trust and believe that God knows the answer and will provide the strength for us to endure.
My favorite book is The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boon. In that book Corrie recalls the following experience she had as a small child.
The night before, a baby had died, and with a basket of her own fresh bread Mama was making the prescribed call on the family. She toiled painfully up the rail less stairs, stopping often for breath. At the top a door opened into a single room that was obviously cooking, eating, and sleeping quarters all at once. There were already many visitors, most of them standing for lack of chairs. Mama went at once to the young mother, but I stood frozen on the threshold. Just to the right of the door, so still in the homemade crib, was the baby.
It was strange that a society which hid the facts of sex from children made no effort to shield them from death. I stood staring at the tiny unmoving form with my heart thudding strangely against my ribs. Nollie, always braver than I, stretched out her hand and touched the ivory-white cheek. I longed to do it too but hung back, afraid. For a while curiosity and terror struggled in me. At last I put one finger on the small curled hand.
It was cold.
Cold as we walked back to the Beje, cold as I washed for supper, cold even in the snug gas-lit dining room. Between me and each familiar face around the table crept those small icy fingers. For all Tante Jan's talk about it, death had been only a word. Now I knew that it could really happen - if to the baby, then to Mama, to Father, to Betsie!
Still shivering with that cold, I followed Nollie up to our room and crept into bed beside her. At last we heard Father's footsteps winding up the stairs. It was the best moment in every day, when he came up to tuck us in. We never fell asleep until he had arranged the blankets in his special way and laid his hand for a moment on each head. Then we tried not to move even a toe.
But that night as he stepped through the door I burst into tears. "I need you!" I sobbed. "You can't die! You can't!"
Beside me on the bed Nollie sat up. "We went to see Mrs Hoog," she explained. "Corrie didn't eat her supper or anything."
Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. "Corrie," he began gently, "when you and I go to Amsterdam - when do I give you the ticket?"
I sniffed a few times, considering this.
"Why, just before we get on the train."
"Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we're going to need things, too. Don't run ahead of Him Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need - just in time."Three days following the Shuttle Columbia tragedy, I would think that same question "Why?" on my way into an operating room in San Antonio, Texas. Woody and I had now come face to face with the first day of our own personal tragedy. This was the moment in time in which our Father had been preparing us. And there, and many times afterward, we would find Him giving us the strength we needed - just in time!
Boom, Corrie Ten, John L. Sherrill, and Elizabeth Sherrill. The Hiding Place. Washington Depot, CT: Chosen, 1971. Print.
© Copyright 1987, 2016 by Rick Murata. All Rights Reserved.