Happy Birthday to you!

I can't sleep tonight. I'm too restless. So many thoughts and I didn't know what to do with them. I guess I'm doing this to help my wondering thoughts calm a bit. I have been truly challenged by my women's Sunday school class that many times I bolt for the door hoping that I can get the tears to withhold themselves before  the other women notice. Why is God convicting me so much? When we moved back here to MD I told myself that we needed to move so that we could better prepare ourselves for the ministry. I didn't realize He would start Preparing us the week we got here. Every week I walk in and He's got another message to challenge me with. A servant's heart is what I have been given and sometimes I don't want it. Other times I ask myself why I have to go through these tough times why can't I just leave now?He called Rob and I to the mission field as teens and I feel so close I can taste it. You know it's a Calling when that's all you think about. I wake up in the morning and it's there, I go to bed and it's there. In my prayers it's there, in my devotions it's there. It's one of those things where you want to go away or it needs to happen tomorrow. I don't think this will end (the nagging of the Holy Spirit) until we are on a plane to wherever our ministry is suppose to be. In the mean time I'm trying really hard to use this servant's heart here and now even though my heart is somewhere else.

The other thing that is keeping me awake is my Jack. I have been 26 for about an hour here on the east coast and I was looking back on this day 6 years ago, when I felt the Holy spirit for the first time. Jack was born on August 5th when he was due September 1st. He was 4 weeks early and because of how sick I was, the medications they had me on, and how weak his lungs were he was born with pneumonia. On my birthday the 8th I was going to go home without my baby. I was eager to see him that morning because they had told me the night before they were going to try to take him off the ventilator. So I hurried down the hall to the NICU and what I found I have never been able to describe with words. The nurse looked at me like a deer in head lights, after a moment she rushed over and softly said "he took a turn for the worse around 3 am. It's been a battle to get him stabilized, but he is now and he still has a chance to pull through this." I stood over my baby who was vibrating extremely fast with even more tubes than he had the day before. I don't think I actually knew how I felt, I guess I was numb. I tried to touch his foot but I couldn't and I turned and walked back to my room. I sat on the edge of my bed not knowing what to feel, just staring at the wall. My nurse came in and sat next to me and asked if I was ok. All I said was "he's worse... my baby is worse". She wrapped her arms around me and held me as I sobbed. After a few minutes I felt calmer and I realized she was praying for me and my little Jack. Her arms were no longer her arms but those of God's. Almost a quiet assurance that if I gave Him Jack he would be in good hands and He would hold Jack as I was being held. What were the nurses words? Till this day I have no clue but does it matter?
       After we got home we got a phone call from the NICU saying that they were transferring Jack to Children's Hospital of LA. They told us that he wasn't getting any worse yet but if he did get worse they didn't have the technology to treat him so they wanted him in a place where they would be ready just in case. That and they rather transfer him while he was stable. That day was along day and my dad drove down to Children's to be with us while they got Jack settled. He never went back to visit it was to hard. He was on a high frequency ventilator which pumps air into the baby's lungs 900 times a minute to dry them out, getting rid of the pneumonia while also strengthening the little lungs. He seemed the same to me everyday when I visited. There were the ups and downs according to his nurse, until the 6th day. The nurse came to me excited as soon as I got off the elevator and told me Jack was starting to breathe over the machine. When I scrubbed in and got all the gear on, I went to see what he was talking about. Sure enough there he was being vibrated by this machine the size of a 5 drawer upright dresser and my little guy's lungs are puffing away over the top of the vibration.  It sure was a site. The nurse said,"his breathing is still irregular so the doc wants him on it for a little while longer but he should be on a regular vent within the next 24 hours".  The next day as I came off the elevator I saw that huge machine being rolled down the hall. I ran to the window to make sure it was Jacks machine and it was. The nurse gave me a thumbs up. I never washed my hands so fast ever. I scrubbed so hard they were red, I was so excited. When I went in to see him the nurse told me it usually only takes about 48 hrs at this point to get them off a vent altogether and that they were going to be transferring him back to the hospital where he was born. The next morning Rob and I went to the hospital where he was born to visit him and when we walked in the nurse escorted us right back out and said " He's doing great they are taking out his vent tube right now" She asked us to wait in the hall and she came out and got us. When we saw him for the first time and all he had was a nasal canula it felt so good. "Can I hold him?" I said as I looked at the nurse. "Of course haven't you held him?" I shook my head no. Rob told her I had barely got a glance before they wisked him away. 10 days....It took me 10 days to be able to hold my baby.
     There were more ups and downs the week that followed. Rob and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary, watching cpr tapes, going through the carseat test, nursing Jack for the first time, and then taking our 16 day old baby home for the first time. People asked me how I was staying so strong through all of it. You know those arms I felt when the nurse held me? They never let me go. Sometimes when I look at Jack and remember that birthday...  I feel those arms again.