Perfect Peace

In the few split seconds after Eden's birth, when I didn't hear a lusty newborn cry and knew she hadn't been healed, I looked over to her bassinet across the room and saw a nice healthy baby. She looked so normal, except for the top of her head. In that second I just didn't understand why she hadn't been healed and my heart broke...

She and Steven went immediately to a private room so the kids could meet their sister since we had been told she looked like it would be a matter of minutes before we lost her. I wondered if I would ever see her alive again.

As they wheeled me in to join my family the first thing I saw were my two daughters, the oldest holding her sister and crying... my heart broke again. I didn't understand the unanswered prayers of that broken hearted girl. They placed the baby in my arms and I had my first chance to hold her, to connect to her... and suddenly God didn't seem that far away. He had created this little one , perfect for His plan, given her life and loved her.

I saw a brokenness in all those who had prayed for her healing and I felt the same brokenness, but I also felt God, whispering He hadn't ignored me, stopped loving me, or made a mistake.

There was peace like none I can describe. Peace that is, frankly hard to connect with right now as hormones shift and change, but peace I felt and know to be real so I hang on to it even though it seems somewhat distant.

I believe God revealed something to me about hope in those moments. Hope and perfect peace. I wanted Eden to be healed as a testimony to His power and greatness. I wanted nothing more that for Eden's life to point people to God. That they would be so amazed and awestruck they couldn't help but fall to their knees before Him. What God chose to reveal to the world was His ability to comfort and give strength when none seems likely.

I did not get to bring my baby home, and I miss her, but I did bring home an encounter with Him that will change me forever. I bring home memories of the doctors and nurses impacted by the peace, hope, and strength they saw in our family and in our friends... the knowledge that we had something different. That difference was The Lord of the Universe. A God so big, yet one who cared so much about a simple little family from Lomita.

It is hard not to have my girl with me, but it was easy to pass her into the arms of My God.

What was supposed to be minutes together, God stretched into just over 36 hours. In her last few moments, when I knew she was leaving us, I felt so calm, so serene, so ready to hand her over to my Jesus. I believe that heaven is all around us. That it is very real but it is in a realm we just don't see... if you read the story of Stephen in Acts he begins to die and speaks of the cloud of wittinesses all around. Eden had never focused her eyes, she was quite probably blind, but in the 20 mins or so before she passed her eyes were open and focused, closing when she breathed her last, and I believe she was focused on her savior. I still remember, and always will, that last breath and the sensation that I was literally handing her off into the arms of God. What a special little girl, to get to spend her eternity with Him so soon.