Thoughts on Miracles

Dear Reader,
I know I haven't posted in a while. Don't perceive that to mean that I've forgotten about Luke or that I don't like to talk about him anymore. It's quite the contrary actually. I still love to talk about Luke, to think of him, to feel him close. But I find myself becoming more and more protective of him and his story.

I've found that this blog is getting hit by inappropriate websites. That makes me SO angry. I'm considering going private with my blog. I'm not sure that it does anyone any good besides myself anyway.

I think I started this blog as a way of letting people know Luke existed. It was so important to me that people know about him, that he mattered, that he was loved. I felt that if his story changed just one person's life that his life was now somehow validated. If not, then what good came from this painful trial?

It has taken me awhile, but I now see that he has changed lives. Ours. Boyd and I, our children, we are much better people now. We live with greater purpose. We love deeper. We have a greater desire to follow Christ. What a miracle, that one little tiny baby could completely change the lives of his family!

I volunteer at the NICU and have just started going back regularly. I still struggle with going around to the babies' bedsides, but that is another story for another day. So I merely go to get presents ready for each baby and to chat with the other volunteers. Just last week a topic of conversation came up that didn't settle well with me. It was the topic of miracles.

One mother talked about her son and his struggle at birth. He had a very risky surgery performed during his first few months in order to save his life. The doctor, finding that things were much worse than anticipated, developed a new method for performing this surgery right there on the spot. He told the mother that the idea just came to him in the middle of the surgery. She told him she felt it was given to him through divine means. He now performs this surgery successfully on dozens of preemies a year now. This mother got all teary-eyed as she proclaimed her son a miracle and that she feels he has some great purpose in this life.

Another mother related a similar experience - how her daughter's NICU stay taught doctors new ways to deal with certain health issues. She too feels her daughter's life is a miracle and that she has important things to do in this life.

Then both looked over at me and quickly apologized. They said they didn't understand why some children made it and some did not. Why some babies were allowed to miraculously live and others to die. And, like always, everyone ended up sitting in awkward silence. If I was a more eloquent person I would have explained to them that their stories of their miraculous babies did not upset me. What upset me was that they would seem to think that because my son died there was no obvious way that he could be a miracle or that he could have some great purpose in this life.

Over the past few months I have come to accept that others' probably don't love my son like I do, nor are they as affected by him as I am. At first that really bothered me. But now I'm okay with the idea that Luke and his life belong solely to our family. What I'm not okay with is people thinking that we don't see him as important as they see their children. I do not need my NICU friends to be affected by Luke's life, but I don't want them to think that he doesn't affect my life positively. A person doesn't have to live to be a miracle - for which I have found the definition that a miracle is NOT something that goes against the natural order of things, but rather something that shows the divinity of God. Keeping that definition in mind, Luke therefore is indeed a miracle. In fact, all of my children are. Their very existence has brought me closer to our Heavenly Father. They teach me that He loves me and is aware of me. Perhaps their births did not teach doctors new ways to save babies. Perhaps no one but me and their dad will ever be affected by their lives, but to me that is enough.

A person does not have to change the lives of thousands to be important. All that matters is that one solitary person is affected for the better. Perhaps that doesn't seem like such a big thing, but to the one person whose life has been changed, it is a very big thing.

I echo the words of Albert Einstein "There are two ways to live life - as though everything is a miracle or nothing is." And like Albert Einstein I have come to believe that everything is. Even the death of a child can be a miracle - for that child has taught his parents and brother and sister that God truly lives. That He is aware of us and wants nothing but our happiness. And that He is always close by to comfort us, to cry with us, and to carry our burdens when they are too heavy for us to bare.

Believe in miracles, dear reader, for they do exist. Don't let other's stories of miracles discourage you and make you wonder why miralces like that don't exist for you. Remember, a miracle is anything that brings you to our loving Heavenly Father. Today it may be something as simple as the fast beating of a tiny bird's wings or that delicious smell of the earth after a rainstorm that reminds you that God does exist. And for me, it just may be the fact that I have three living children. One may be somewhere just beyond my sight, but I know that he lives all the same. And I will cling to my miralce with all my might until the day I am reunited with my Lukie.

All my love,
Ann