Take a Deep Breath...

I just got back from the hospital.  I was visiting our Hazel Grace, and I also got the opportunity to visit with another lady, Mrs. W, from our church who is there because she is having heart and lung issues.

Baby Hazel is 2 weeks old...

Mrs W is 78 years old...2,808 weeks

They both will have deciding days on Monday.

Life decisions...

Life or death decisions.

The one is just beginning...she hasn't had a chance at life yet...

and the other?

Well, she's really just beginning, too.

Talking with Mrs W is a life changing, faith challenging, experience.  She has so much to share, so much to tell,

and she wants to write it all down in a book.

She's just beginning.

What will happen on Monday?  Will Monday shut it all down?  Will Monday stop a heart, stop a life, stop a book, stop a witness?

Breathe...

Give it up...let it go...take it from here, God, because I can't.

The doctors will make decisions about Mrs W on Monday.  Can she tolerate surgery?  Is there anything they can do?  Is it just a waiting game at this point?

Breathe...breathe it up to God.  Sigh the prayers that catch in the throat.  God sees you and hears even the softest whisper alone in the hospital room in the dead of night when there's no one there to hold your hand or to clutch the other end of the telephone receiver and balance your fears.  Breathe...

Baby Hazel is not doing well, either.  The doctor has said that she is worried about our Hazel Grace.  She said that her lungs are in bad shape.

Breathe, baby Hazel.  Don't give up.  There's so much more out here for you...

She is on the jet ventilator now.  This ventilator fills her lungs with air and circulates it rather than pushing it in and out rhythmically.  It's a gentler controlling of air flow with a sigh every 20 seconds.

Breathe, baby Hazel.  Sigh it out.  God sees you, too.

Her lungs are badly damaged from the infection that she had.  She is done with the round of antibiotics, and she will get another culture tomorrow.  If that culture comes back negative, she will start inhaled steroids on Monday, which will help heal her lungs.  And if not...?  We don't know.

We have to wait til Monday to find out the results of the culture...

that's 3 days away.

Breathe, mama...breathe it out.  Sigh your prayers up to God.

The night closes in and the daytime stills.  The others are all tucked into their beds.

Soft breaths, smelling of minty toothpaste and baby sweetness.  Heads laid gently on the pillows, legs all tossed about with bare feet hanging off the edge, toes pointing towards the floor.  Loveys clutched to the chest...a stuffed kitty with the nose almost bitten off in the sticky hands of the one in the crib...a pink shirt that I wore when he was just a newborn nursing tucked tightly against my chest intertwined in the fingers of the one that barely still fits in the toddler bed...a fuzzy blanket tangled up with the one with the wildly curly hair...a camouflaged stuffed bear alongside the tall one that has been through so much lately, playing mother-daughter-sister all in one...

and far away in a bed all closed in and all alone is the tiniest of all resting under the beeping green lights of the monitors, clutching tubes and probes for dear life...

and me here...clutching straws and hopes and fears and dreams...

and at the same time, letting go with a breath and a sigh...

this is yours, God.  From the tiniest tiny of my dear sweet Hazel Grace up through the ranks to the 78 year old Mrs. W...it's all yours...

Breathe...

Let my prayers rise before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.  (Ps. 141:2)