When Your Heart is Sick

He could barely breathe.
The gasps of air were met with a hallow, barking negative.
Hitting me, head shaking back and forth - back and forth - he fell to the ground in tears.
I'm really thankful for modern medicine. I'm thankful for the team of medical professionals
that met us in the emergency room and helped bring sweet, calm breath back to our baby boy.



Isaiah kept guard, Nathan held on to our Judah, and I sat in a chair with my back against the wall -
supposedly poised, gathered, solid, but behind my face of stone was a wild horse of a woman coming
undone, unfolded, unwound before the God I sometimes trust.

Mountain tops and valleys low. I'm never a permanent resident. Here today, gone tomorrow -
I've let my prayer be: "Lord, let me remember the mountains, the moments in the light, so that
the memory can burn bright when I feel the pull of descent and approaching shadows."

Trusting God is a no-brainer when it's easy. Trusting God when it's difficult, scary - when your very
HEART is on the line - is another story. I made myself pray. I made myself choose F A I T H. And then I
beat myself up for not being stronger, holier, more calm, collected - a vision of sainthood. Ridiculous.

Later that night, I stood in a pediatric intensive care unit with my two year old. I set him on the bed
so I could pull the rocking chair closer to his monitors. He reached out to me, those blueberry eyes of
his framed in bloodshot whites, and said: "Hold you, momma."

He always says it that way when he is the one that wants to be held.
But it struck me so differently that night. I needed to be held too. His words were perfect.
His little arms wrapped around my neck, and my big arms wrapped around his baby body,
and God's unseen, but so powerfully felt, arms wrapped around us all.

My heart was sick. Yes, my child. Yes, my physical, beating heart as well - diseased with
being human, fallen - ready to rage, reject, repel when trust is threatened. Not my child, Lord.

I tell my children all the time: "Momma loves you, but Jesus loves you more."
Making that my cry of trust today. If I really believe it, then maybe, just maybe, my heart
will understand to look up, look high and remember to trust. Even when it is sick.