October 27, 2013
Surrender, Be Still, Be Covered and Take Comfort in His Word
- Suzanne Gaidoo
I can’t count how many times I have thought about today. The baptism of my kids. After two miscarriages I didn’t know if I would ever have kids. In July 2012, my husband, John, and I felt ready to try to get pregnant again. I was finally able to look at the past and see the good in it. Because of the past, I knew just how badly I wanted to be a mom.
A good friend of mine asked, “Have you asked God to give you a child.” I hadn’t. So, that night, for the first time, I got down on my knees and asked God to give me a child. Thankfully, God knows that I am not a very patient person. I took a pregnancy test later that evening and sure enough, it was positive.
I began thinking about baptism shortly after finding out that I was pregnant. “God, if you give me this child, I will give its life back to you.” One day during my morning drive the song I Surrender All began to play. The lyrics are simple:
All to Jesus, I surrender,
All to him I freely give,
I surrender all
As I listened, I began to cry. I thought about this day.
When I next spoke with my friend and retold the story about my prayer and positive pregnancy test, I mentioned that I had an overwhelming feeling that I was having twins. I joking said, “I better be careful what I ask for.” I never mentioned that conversation to John. That is until he turned to me and said, “Are you thinking what I am thinking.” I said, “twins.” He said, “Yes, you know too?”
That following week we went to the Dr. for our first ultrasound. We held our breaths just hoping that the ultrasound technician would find a viable pregnancy. After what seemed like hours, I asked, “Do you see anything?” She replied, I see two somethings. That day we saw two babies and heard two heartbeats. And we knew we would be ok, because God told us we were having twins.
At 25 weeks pregnant we went to the Dr. for a checkup. I was feeling fine, other than the fact that I was huge! We had previously learned that I had developed polyhydramnios, a big word for too much amniotic fluid. As our appointment was winding up the Dr. walked into the room, I thought to give me a check out sheet, instead he told me that he was admitting me to the hospital. I was terrified. I would remain there, in bed, until the twins were born.
At first I wrestled with the idea of being in bed, in the same room, until the twins were born. However, shortly after being admitted the Bible passage Exodus 14:14 came up as part of my daily devotional. Exodus 14:14 says, “The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.” So, that settled that.
To cover me with faith during my hospital stay, I received this [prayer shawl]. It is a prayer shawl from you. This prayer shawl covered me with God’s love and your love. It made me feel safe. It eased my fears. It is without exaggeration that I tell you, my prayer shawl never left my bed during my entire hospital stay. It kept me warm, dried my tears and seemingly hugged me back when I squeezed it.
Those first days in the hospital we learned that my amniotic fluid was at a dangerous level. The Doctors had to find a way to reduce the fluid. I will spare you the details, just know that it involves a long needle, no anesthetic, and syphoning off fluid by hand over the course of a 45 min long procedure. My job during all of this was to “lay still.”
After the first reduction the Doctor remarked that he had never had anyone stay so calm throughout that procedure. He asked how I did so. Nervous that my reply may surprise him or invite skepticism, I answered him simply and honestly. I said, “I wasn’t here. I was with God.” I explained that while wrapped in my prayer shawl I simply imagined myself in God’s presence. I can still remember sitting in tall grass, beside a flowing stream. I can still feel the warm breeze and see children playing the distance. I would have two more amnio-reductions and two more times, I was covered by my prayer shawl and comforted by the presence of God.
It is important for me to share with you that while I am telling portions of this story from my own perspective and in the first person point of view, John lived this with me and in those times when it was too much to bear, he lived it for me. He spent every night on the little love seat in my room so that I never had to be alone.
After spending 28 days in the hospital I had settled into a routine. On Monday, February 4, 2013, the Dr. walked into my room and I said, “time to drain the barrel again.” He didn’t laugh. Instead he explained that the pregnancy had become toxic to my body. My liver had started to fail. 48 hours later with John by my side and my prayer shawl on my bed, the Earth stood still for just a minute as Davis John Corbin and Josie Elizabeth entered the world. They weighed 4.4 lbs and 2.9 lbs. They were both taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit or NICU.
The NICU is a scary place. Life literally hangs in the balance all around you. The goal, the only goal, is to make it home. Thankfully, God’s word was there to comfort us.
Early in our NICU stay a portion of the 23rd Psalms was discussed in my daily devotional:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou are with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
I had always been terrified of the 23rd Psalm. It was something we only said at funerals. It meant someone died. Only after that devotional reading did I truly understand those words. They embodied everything we were going through. They were about faith, comfort, life and resting in God.
Almost immediately into our NICU stay our world was rocked again. We were given the news that one of the twins’ kidneys were failing. Our baby was in critical condition and would need to fight for life. Our doctors were at a loss. They had never treated kidney failure in a baby that small. Over the next five days our baby underwent a somewhat experimental form of dialysis. By the grace of God it worked and our baby’s kidneys began to function normally.
Thankfully, the rest of our NICU stay passed relatively uneventfully. After seven and a half weeks we were headed home. Our first baby came home on Monday, March 25, 2013. Our second baby came home the following Friday, March 29, 2013. Fittingly, that was also Good Friday. In both instances, our final stop at the hospital was the Chapel. We placed each baby on the alter and thanked God. And, on that Good Friday, when our family left the hospital as a family of 4, we placed our baby, who had fought so hard for life and who overcame kidney failure, on the alter and we prayed;
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul;
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
for thou are with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Please don’t feel bad for us. Our story is a happy one. We stayed still, we were covered by faith and we found peace in God’s word. Mostly, we surrendered our lives to his will and today, through baptism, we surrender our children to him. All to Jesus, I surrender. All to him, I freely give. Yes, I surrender all.