just breathe

I woke this morning at about 6:30 having had a nightmare that Sellers came into our room wanting to see her baby sister and Conor and I telling her that she was gone. When I realized it wasn't going to be a nightmare, after all, but a reality we'd face, and perhaps soon, my heart sank. I was in a lot of pain - surgical - and needed to take some more medicine, so I climbed out of bed and began to head toward the door. That's when I heard Copeland squeal.

We are convinced that we lost her last night. She went totally gray, stopped breathing, and then, after she gasped several times after that and seemed to regain any strength at all, we simply imagined that though she might seem to be somewhat "back", these were simply stages along the road to death. Our neonatologists at the hospital had convinced us - albeit lovingly and with every ounce of knowledge about this process that Conor and I can't claim to possess - that things like gasping, breathing slowing to excruciating paces, and certainly the absence of any chest movement are all signs... death is upon us. We watched her struggle to breathe and then made the hardest decision we've ever had in our lives: to let go. We placed Copeland beside us, left the lights on, and rested. Our level of exhaustion was so intense that we actually bickered with each other before going to sleep - about nothing important, nonetheless. If you know Conor and I, you know we don't bicker... certainly don't fight. It sounds stupid, but for some reason we just like each other a lot and enjoy being together. Satan was so active in that room, the spiritual warfare so great, that it was all we could do to forgive and weep in each others' arms. I will count it as the most difficult night of my life.

Upon hearing our girl squeak from her bassinet this morning, my heart soared. And fell to greater depths than I can explain. We have let her go as best as we know how. We have said goodbye and given her to the Father. And now we are in a "wait and see" zone. The Lord may not take her for another day. Or weeks. How we ride the emotional rollercoaster of the unknown is absolutely beyond me. Conor was fighting mad last night. We're both mad. What is God doing? Where is He? I'm sick of trying so hard to honor Him and to make sure He is proud of me... only to feel my most specific and heartwrenching cries are not heard. And yet to find my girl alive this morning was the most incredible high I've ever felt. So perhaps He's answering prayers I've yet to pray... perhaps He's answering prayers I was meant to pray and didn't. I don't know. I sat alone in the morning sunlight pouring into my parents' living room earlier and the only words I could pray - maybe the only words I honestly felt I wanted to pray - were, "God, I can breathe. That's what I can do. Now I'm going back to bed."

I am not asking you to pray specifically for anything anymore. At least not at this moment. What I am asking you for is that you would pray God will have His way. That we will not live with expectation, per se, but with hope, certainly, and rest in Him. Pray we will be authentic in the anger we feel, even if that means we have some exchanges with Him that would make conservative Christians balk. I am convinced that if neither life nor death can keep us from the love of God, then certainly a few harsh words aren't too much for Him to handle.