On Our Knees   

It was Easter Sunday, 2001, Amy was 19 days old.  She had had a restless night.  It was a mother's intuition I guess, because I just knew something was wrong.  We spent Easter morning at church and then we went to Grandmas.  At home that evening, I told my husband I was going to the emergency room with her.  At 8:00 p.m., they diagnosed Amy with meningitis and transferred her to another hospital.  There we spent the next 3 weeks on our knees praying that God would save our baby.  While in the PICU, we played non-stop praise music.  The outlook was not good, the inflammation had gone into her brain tissue.  A nurse told me to start planning her funeral.  The brain scans were continually getting worse.  I stayed with her all but two nights when my husband let me go home for lack of sleep.  I had three other precious children at home.  Without my faith in Jesus I would have never survived. 

When Amy came home we knew she had brain damage, but we did not know what lay ahead.  She could not eat.  So I feed her one ounce of formula each hour, twenty hours per day.  I slept for 4.  Where was Jesus in all of this?  HE was carrying me, HE was carrying Amy, HE was carrying our three other children, and HE was carrying my husband. 

Amy is now five years old, and still cannot sit without support, or roll over.  She cannot talk.  But how blessed we feel to have been given this precious child from God, whose smile reminds us of His unfailing love.

I do not know why some children are healed, some like Amy are not, and some go into the arms of our Heavenly Father, but I do know that in Jesus, we have hope.  Denise