I would want to share her story because I have seen our God, who can do anything, do the miraculous. It wasn’t a coincidence, and it wasn’t lucky. It was purely the reckless love of our God intersecting our lives in a way that I would want you to know about because this great God is the One we all have an opportunity to know. This great God is One who is trustworthy and will lead and love you forever if you will take your gift.
Our lives changed in an instant.
On day three of my daughter’s life, there was a fight. It started between the doctor and the nurse in our small NICU room and ended with a granted request to get an echo of my daughter’s heart. Upon seeing the test, the doctor ran to us in a panic. As I clung to my husband and wept, he said we had a 1/3 chance we were going to lose her, 1/3 chance she would need a heart and lung transplant, and 1/3 chance she would recover but would be a “vegetable” because she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. My father-in-law baptized her, they loaded her into the ambulance, and my heart proceeded ahead of us as we transferred hospitals in hopes that her body would hold long enough to get her on ECMO.
We pulled into the hospital and yelled ahead to see if she was still alive. She was and we followed them into the hallway of the pediatric ICU. As things continued to fail, we were ushered into the small, quiet, sterile room where you sit and wait while your child dies.
As grim news poured in, it was very apparent it was not going well. Her lungs were full of blood and they couldn’t get her ventilated. They had cut her neck open to harvest the vein to put her on ECMO while she was receiving chest compressions…things were failing. As we received yet another report, the doctor’s eyes expressed a lack of hope. I remember saying after he gave us the grim plan (that in hindsight was preparation for the “we have done everything we could do” talk), “I trust you because I trust my God.”
When the doctor left and the room was again quiet, we had the rare privilege to choose. We had the rare privilege to stand in between the physical reality and the ultimate reality. We had said forever that we believed the Bible and God’s promises to be true. Could we hand our daughter over to our God? Could we stand on that belief? That answer was yes.
As we sat another doctor entered the room. They reported a change: it seemed like they were unsure what was happening, but it sounded like a glimmer of hope we had not yet seen…still grim, but not certain death. Her cardiothoracic surgeon entered a bit later and said, “I had everyone stop, and as we watched things started to change. I don’t know what to tell you, but I didn’t do that. Sometimes you stand by a bed and you know there is a Creator.”
Samantha had a third of her blood in her lungs, and thirty mins later the blood was gone. It was unexplainable. Over a series of weeks, she came home from the hospital and after her final heart procedure, looking for a reason for the crash, a cardiologist said, “We just can’t figure out why she tried so hard to die and then just came back.”
I have seen the goodness of my God. I have seen the things our God can do. I am convinced that as you trust Him, you will see them too. So today as we celebrate her sixth birthday, we celebrate with candles that I didn’t think I would see her blow out, and as I do, I am overwhelmed with goodness that I do not deserve from our God who recklessly lavishes His goodness upon us.
We celebrate with our little girl, that besides the scar on her neck from ECMO prep, does not have one sign of her heart failure, of the lack of oxygen, or any of the brutal things her body went through in those weeks at the hospital or the year of tests that followed.
I want you to know, not to say, “Today look at her…” I want you to know because today I want you to look at our God, at His goodness and His care.
Whether we would be visiting her graveside today or hanging streamers in the kitchen together…the same is true. The God who the trees reach high for, the One who controls the waves while we sleep, telling them where they may go and when they may go no further…He is worth giving your life to. There is a love that is compelling, and it is found in the eyes of your God who waits while you wonder. He is patient and kind. He is strong and just. He holds the keys to the life you never knew you always wanted. Oh my friends, take your gift.
