God Held Me

Sometimes I think I take things too much in stride and don’t really dwell on the experiences I am walking through. (Hmm … I guess there are pros and cons to that statement!) For some reason, I began thinking about the many things we have gone through with our three children in just six short years … and I could add even more to this list:

I held a baby with a heart murmur and a hole in her heart.

I took her to pediatric cardiologists and watched them attach little “leads” all over her chest to chart her heart’s rhythm and evaluate its health.

I held a baby who was anemic.

I held her tiny little arm while the phlebotomist inserted the smallest of butterfly needles and drew blood samples.

I held a baby who didn’t breathe and was without a heartbeat for eight minutes after birth.

I cradled her gingerly amidst the mass of wires and tubes that decorated her newborn body. I took care not to stroke her soft skin, because the nurses said it would cause her pain. I softly sang songs to her as she lay in her incubator.

I held a baby who needed to see the pediatric audiologist, and the pediatric ophthalmologist.

I soothed her as they measured sounds in her ears, and watched as she lay on the table and had her little eyes examined.

I held a baby who was premature.

I cried as I held him for the first time. I watched as his formula dripped through a tube in his tiny nose into his little belly. I tenderly bathed him in a little hospital basin.

As I think about these experiences, though, I am not sad or burdened by them. I am almost in awe of them, because when it comes right down to it God was in control of every single situation.

I held a baby … and God held me.