From childhood on, we dream of Christmas being a day of uninterrupted family time with gifts and delicious food. To have anything come between us and this fantasy is unthinkable. Three years ago, our family experienced what it is like to have those plans upended in a magical Christmas gone bad.
It all began as we were making final preparations to drive fourteen hours from our apartment in Brooklyn to my parents' home in Tennessee. We couldn't wait to see aunts, uncles and cousins.
I took our eight-month-old daughter Amelia to the pediatricians a few days before leaving because she had an ear infection and seemed very weak. Amelia had always tracked small on the weight chart. After taking her weight during the visit, the doctor discovered she had actually fallen off the chart and guessed her inability to be very active was because her body was not absorbing the calories she needed. I saw the concern on our doctor's face and knew this was serious. Then and there, our doctor recommended Amelia should be hospitalized. A week or two more might be too much time to wait for medical intervention. And just like that, our Christmas plans had changed dramatically.
I wanted to wake up from this horrible nightmare as our daughter was put in a hospital gown and a day later, given a feeding tube, through her nose and into her throat. What was going on? It didn't seem like our life. doctors and nurses came in to examine her and tests were done. They all seemed fascinated by this tiny person that could not seem to gain weight yet had no signs of a serious ailment.
We called family to tell them we would not be coming after all. Immediately, my mom bought a plane ticket and joined us Christmas Eve, ready to do whatever she could to help us out with our other two young children. About 24 hours after her arrival, my poor mom came down with a terrible virus and was unable to do anything more than lie on our couch, feverish and coughing uncontrollably. My husband was at his wits end trying to take care of everything as I did not want to leave Amelia's side. The exhausted saint of a man kept the helm at home, coming to the hospital in the evenings to spend some time with us.
Then a powerful blizzard hit Brooklyn. Snow plows had no power in the fury of this storm and many were simply ditched on the roads in great walls of snow. Transportation stopped for a few days and walking to and from the hospital became an almost impossible endeavor. My husband would arrive to the hospital freezing and soaked to the bone. Could anything else possibly go wrong we wondered?
It was in these moments that we were forced to really examine our faith and our trust in God. He was not being a sadist, intent on ruining our Christmas plans, but the same faithful Father we had come to know and trust.
As Amelia grew stronger with the extra nutrition entering her body through the feeding tube, we were given a glimpse of God as our shepherd, tenderly holding His little, helpless lamb in His arms. The doctors could do everything they had been trained to do but ultimately, she was in the care of her Maker.
We were finally discharged from the hospital after a week and a half. We were met at home by a nurse who showed us how to use the feeding tube that Amelia would have for the next five months.
My husband and I grew up that December from romantic twenty somethings into two people who really understood for the first time that plans do not always go the way we would like and God desires our growth above our happiness.
Now Amelia is a healthy, active three and a half year old. This Christmas, as we anticipate all the joys of being with family, we will never forget that year and the care we received from our Lord and Savior. He saw us in all our fear, doubt and confusion and He gave us a gift more precious than we could have imagined-the overwhelming richness of His presence.