“The devil on his best day did not take you out on your worst day. You are still here. You are still standing. The best is still to come!”

-Christine Caine

November 11, 2015

Putting a 3 month old baby in a hospital gown just should not happen. Let me just repeat myself here:

Putting a BABY in a hospital gown should NOT happen.

Of course they are tiny and so cute, but still. It shouldn’t happen. We arrived at Children’s hospital in OKC and filled out paper work. Signed forms. Explained to a million doctors, nurses, interns, residents why we are there and waited. Surgery was scheduled for 8 and we sat there for almost two hours after that appointed time. Shane was a trooper. I mean nothing short of amazing. He could not eat anything after 1 am and he did not fuss a bit. We walked up and down the halls with him. Bounced him in chairs and just got smile after smile from our champ. After waiting an eternity the surgeon came back and told us it was time. We were put in a holding room and a lady named Brittany came up to me and said “ok mama.” She handed me tissues as I exploded in tears and hugged my boy for a long time. Then handed him over to a stranger who I had met 1 second before. It is surreal really. Your babies going into surgery. You are trusting random strangers to not only watch your child for the next two hours, but actually put them under, cut into them, and sew them back up. Its nuts!

We started walking back to the waiting room and Michael stopped me for a second and I just cried in his arms. Big tears. Big big tears. My sons cleft smile that I loved so much was gone forever. No stopping now. It was gone.

For weeks I had worried over this moment. The moment I would have to sit in a waiting room and hold it together. I prayed over this exact moment for weeks. We had a whole army of people praying for us, with us, over us. I sat down ready to fall apart and a strange thing happened: I didn’t. I went and got a coke and donut muffin (if you must know what a donut muffin is- it was heaven in a bite) and I jammed my Shane and Shane and got out Shane’s journal and I wrote him a letter. I remember feeling the most incredible peace.

Peace! How ridiculous! I freak out when my kid falls on the cement. Is his arm broken? Will he walk again? Life is over because he fell down and life will never be the same. But here. In the waiting room. Peace. I didn’t get it. And then God did what he had done through this whole walk He spoke to me.

I am here. I am the creator of heaven and earth. The all knowing. All seeing. I have heard your cries. I have heard you sorrows. I have heard the army raising you up. And I am here. My peace is give to you. Let it flow over you like a tidal wave.

This was the moment the devil was waiting for. The moment I just could not bear. The one when I would for real lose it, get in fetal position and just refuse to move. No more responsibilities. Not more facing life. Just crumble. But I didn’t. I sat in that waiting room and wrote Shane a letter. I told him all about Jesus and what he had done for us. How he had created him perfectly and for a purpose and how I could not wait to see what that purpose was. And i told him how excited I was for the day he came to know Jesus as his own personal Lord and savior. I remember crying thinking about that moment. How sweet it would be.

The why was so clear now. How could I miss it? My faith was not shaken in a time when it should’ve been. A year ago a trial not even a fraction of this magnitude would’ve grounded me, faith abandoned. Something was happening within me. Throughout all the groaning and all the whys God was refining me piece by piece. Stripping away all the road blocks. All the walls. Every little excuse I had to not cling to him. The security of a plan. The security of experience. The security of knowledge. All that melted away.

He forced them out of my hands. And swept me into His.