Jesus Is All There Is

For the past several months, our church has been focusing on being a Contagious Christian. We have all taken a closer look in our worship services and our Sunday School classes at what it means to be more outreach-minded. In our class last week, we looked at the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. We talked about the dramatic, 180-degree turnarounds like hers that are in the Gospels, people whose lives were going one way, then they met Jesus and things were completely different. I started thinking, that's not me. I grew up in the church. I don't have a dramatic conversion story. Honestly, I can't remember a time in my life when God wasn't a part of my life. And His presence in my life has made all the difference for me.

I went into premature labor with the twins at 20 weeks. I was placed on bed rest and given Brethine to stop the contractions. With much prayer and obedience to the doctor's orders, I made it to 33 weeks. On July 6, 2004, our doctor told us it was time. Jason and I headed up to the hospital after picking up a few things from our house. We were greeted by family and church friends up at the hospital. Finally around 10:30 pm, I was told that I was the next one in line for my section. Unfortunately, a mother who was much earlier in her pregnancy was rushed into the operating room for an emergency C-Section. At the time, I did not know the young mother, but in the days and weeks to come, our paths would cross.

When you have a premature baby, the neonatologists will be very straight forward in their prognosis with the parents. At first, you are a mere spectator. You are told when you can and when you can't hold or even touch your baby. You are not allowed to open the isolet doors and feel your baby. You are scared silly by all of the monitors, IVs, feeding tubes, and the loud alarm systems that ring when a baby's oxygen or sat. levels drop. You are simply overwhelmed by it all. You can't just walk in and hold your baby. You have to be "allowed access". There are times during the day when you (as the parent) are not even allowed to see your baby. You don't know if you can change your baby's diaper, give them back their pacy, change their clothes, hold them, or feed them. Having a baby in the NICU is extremely frightening. Several babies don't make it. Several parents have to leave that hospital without their baby.

For me, the days and weeks that our babies spent in the NICU were some of the most difficult days of my life. Sure, people will try to make you feel better by telling you that you can have time to prepare yourself for them coming home. Or that they will get on this awesome schedule and that you won't have to "train" them yourselves. Or that you can get a trial run (without them) or that you can catch up on your sleep. I know that people are only trying to help you out in that time, but those kind of comments don't help. Having a baby in the NICU is one of the scariest and hardest times a new mother or father will face.

One thing that Jason and I kept telling each other while our babies were in the hospital was that we could not make it through something like that without our faith. How do non-Christians go through something as traumatic as the NICU without a relationship with God the Father? During those difficult days, it was our faith and trust in God that helped us get through.

One night in the NICU, Jason was reading to Joshua from the little Bible that our Children's Ministry gives to all the newborns. It's one of those King James New Testaments that also has the Psalms and Proverbs in it. He came across a verse that became our prayer in that month Joshua was in the NICU. Psalm 138:8, "Forsake not the works of thine own hands." Our prayer over and over was that God would not forsake these precious little babies He made with His own hands. And that prayer brought us so much comfort.

One night while driving home from the hospital around 11:00pm, Jason and I saw a couple walking on the sidewalk a block or so from the hospital. This was the couple that had their baby prematurely just a few hours before ours. While our children were in the NICU, we had seen this couple nearly every day, in the elevator, in the hallway, standing over their baby's isolet. That night, they were walking away from the hospital and down Governor's Drive toward the Parkway. It was late and no one else was out on the streets that night but us. As Jason and I approached them, the young mother turned towards us and attempted to jump off onto the road in front of our moving vehicle. The man that was with her grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back up onto the sidewalk just before Jason slammed on the brakes. She burst into tears in his arms and they started walking back the opposite direction.

I don't know if this couple had any kind of religious faith or not. And I don't know what was going through that young mother's mind at that moment. But as she was standing there after being pulled back to the sidewalk, I looked at her and you could just see the pain in her face, in her eyes. She looked like she had no hope. And here we were, Jason and I, going through the exact same thing. And we know the only way we were able to make it through was with Jesus on our side.

I know we all have our own stories to tell and our own struggles. I'm sure many of you have been through difficult circumstances, too. But in the midst of those trying times, let's not forget that with Jesus on our side, there's never any reason for us to lose hope.

Because in the end, Jesus is all there is.