I met a couple last summer at a local college reunion. My sister was coming to town, and another friend suggested we get the locals together. This couple that showed up started college the year after I left, but was in the school at the same time as some others there.
They shared about how they met, and re-met, decided to get married, and how God was working in their lives.
These are people about whom you cannot help but recognize the light of God. It radiates from their being and touches everyone around them. I thought about them from time to time over the past year. Wondering about them. Hoping to get int touch with them and keep up with their 'Jesus adventures'.
I heard a couple of weeks ago that they had a baby! How wonderful! But their baby is sick. While they welcomed this beloved, much hoped for life into their family, they had, immediately to give his life, the survival of his flesh, over to God.
Most of us that call ourselves christians say that we give our children back to God. That we know they aren't ours to hold selfishly, with the tight grip of a parent that wants no harm to come to their child.
James and Kirsten were put in on the front lines of the battle for their child immediately. They have a fantastic army of Dr.'s, surgeons, nurses, and prayer warriors.
This doesn't change the fact that Ewan Eliezer has a broken heart. For one week and 6 days, Ewan has been fighting for his life. He has had ups and downs. The answers to desperate prayer have been too brief, sliding his life into precarious balance again.
This morning, Ewan's parents have to make the choice to let their precious little boy slip from this life into the everlasting arms of the one who created him, or send him into a surgery that may rupture his arteries. Something that may still take him from this world, but without the comforting arms of his parents on that journey.
I cannot imagine the pain and desperation of such a decision. As it is in this moment, all seven of my children are healthy and whole. Their flesh is intact. I do not mourn for broken bodies.
While I know that physical safety is not, by far, the most amazing gift that God gives, it is, by the standard of my flesh, one of them.
God, my heart cries to you for Kirsten, James and Ewan. You know the pain of giving up your only Son. You knew that your precious lamb would be salvation for the lost. Humanity knows nothing of your mystery. Of your plan. Of how Ewan's life impacts your Kingdom. We can see snippets. We can see the hundreds upon hundreds of people praying in unison for Ewan. We can see the beautiful witness of Kirsten and James as they continue to persevere in their faith.
I know what it is to hold my babies, to snuggle them close, to wake to their cries and comfort them, fully expecting that they will wake the next morning, healthy and growing.
Kirsten and James do not.
God, please, be clear in the direction that you have for these saints. Allow them the peace that you promise to the ones that love you. God, today, fill their empty arms with your grace and comfort.
And selfishly, crying from my flesh to see this couple know the joy I have as a parent, please create a miracle within Ewan's body. It pains me to know that you always answer prayer, but that it isn't always the way I want it to be. It hurts me to think that your ways, though higher and better than my own, are not the way I would have them.
Still, I have hope, and I can not but tell you about that hope. To be honest and open in my prayer.
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