When I was 8 weeks pregnant with Daisy I was on this same Holy Yoga retreat. I was there to teach the Bible Study for 60 plus women being certified as Holy Yoga instructors. My second day at the retreat I started spotting and cramping. I was sure I was miscarrying and spent the day crying out to God for the life of my baby. My friend Brooke brought this verse to me and I was so aware that God was speaking something profound over me... "This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it." {Isaiah 30:15}
I decided to rest; to be still. I went for a massage with a therapist named Elizabeth who had come on the retreat. I told her that I was 8 weeks pregnant but didn't mention that I thought I was miscarrying. While working on me she said, "Oh! You've had other children." I asked how she knew that and she explained that the memory of my children are etched in the muscles and bones of my body. And then she said, "I can even tell sometimes if someone is going to miscarry... but not you. This baby is FIRMLY ROOTED in you." I caught my breath and felt the Presence of God spilling over me in her words. A few minutes later I said, "I haven't told anyone this, but I really feel like this baby is a girl." Elizabeth stopped what she was doing and said, "This baby IS a girl and she is going to change EVERYTHING."
Daisy is six months old and she has already changed everything. Everything. My pregnancy with her was healing in my marriage. Her birth redeemed the sadness of my previous births. Her smiling, beautiful personality has brought sunshine to our family. And now her near death experience has shed beauty and healing over her family, her friends and countless strangers. How can we be anything but confident of God's intervention and rescue? Daisy was at the brink of death. What was meant for sorrow was turned for our good. In the last two days three local television stations have run stories on Daisy (here, here and here). There is no way to keep Jesus from the story because he IS the story. Today Inside Edition is coming to do a story on our little Belle. We KNOW that the miraculous is a story humankind always needs to hear. We need to know that God is still listening, still moving. And, even when our stories don't end with our babies playing and laughing on our laps, God is still just as present. I read a book years ago called God on Mute by Pete Greig. Pete says that when God is silent and seemingly absent he is just on mute. He hasn't stepped away. He hasn't forgotten. He's still listening. He's still faithfully near to us. He's just on mute. And he won't always be on mute. God works for our deliverance even when everything is crashing in around us. He works for our healing even when sorrow follows us to the brink of despair.
Yesterday a woman named Dawn contacted me with her story. It
was so beautiful, so sad and so full of hope I asked her if I could share it with you. Here is Dawn's story....
"First and foremost my prayers are with you and Daisy… always. This story for me is part of my healing process I guess you could say. Nine years ago, today actually, we lost our beautiful baby boy to the complications of the scorpion antivenom. He was allergic to the old stuff and because of his death Dr. Leslie Boyer brought the new anti venom ( ANTISCORP). It is really ironic that your story would help me through the anniversary of Dally’s death but it does because i know he didn’t die in vain and your baby is alive.. This helps me heal more every day knowing how many children are treated with this antiscorp and how many parents that don’t have to go through what my husband and I did…. When we lost dally it was the worst day of our lives but like you and your husband it also brought me and my husband closer together. At the time we also had an 4 yr old, 3 yr old and an eight month old son who greatly made our lives easier. We didn't have to put away bottles or anything that reminded us of Dally because his brother Morgan was using those things... Learning that they brought the new anti venom to the states and that no other parents had to go through what we did was somehow peaceful. Five yrs later unfortunately we would find ourselves in the same scenario. Morgan was stung on the same finger that his brother had but this time it was at school and not at home. We went to the same ER where Dally had died and it was so gut wrenching.... I thought here we go again and I was going to lose another son.... what had I done? But to all avail we were on a helicopter to the University Medical Center in Tucson within an hour where Dr. Boyer was waiting for us. Within 3 or 4 hours we were eating french fries at McDonald's because Morgan was hungry on the way home... Miracles do happen...."
Jesus. Oh Jesus. His mercy never fails us. Even when sadness and grief have stripped us of life. He is faithful to work for our hope and our healing. He does not abandon us. Dawn's story is gut wrenching. But it is powerfully redeeming. I am both horribly sad and breath-catchingly relieved by what she has experienced. Thank you Dawn, for sharing so openly and for seeing the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living...
I am still so, so grateful for your comments and emails. Thank you for your donations. Thank you for your prayers. This is a story we will tell Daisy for the rest of her life - when she had almost slipped away and the world linked arms to fight for her. Thank you.