The Dream

I dont often remember my dreams when I wake.

I wish I could forget last nights.

Evie was at MUSC in Charleston for another surgery. I watched her surgeon saw through her breastbone and perform a lengthy procedure on her tiny beating heart. They worked to stabilize her in the PCICU post-op. She was hooked up to chest tubes and ventilator and she had her pacing wires and catheter in. I was breathing recycled hospital air that wreaked of hand sanitizing solution. I could hear the droning of the beeping monitors fluctuating with her arrhythmia and labored breathing under a drug induced coma. Like fingernails on a chalk board, I could hear the high pitched shrill laugh of one of the Respiratory Therapist that I vividly remember from our last stay in PC echoing through the Unit. Our favorite nurse was there administering the meds to my girl and flushing her lines. I was draped over the foot of her bed with my head burried in Evie's favorite blanket - crying.

I woke at 5 am with my own heart thundering and my hands shaking.

The possibility of Evie facing another surgery has been an emotional hurdle Im working to overcome. Any parent of a heart baby knows, this nightmare never completely ends. You never wake up to find that the bad dream is over. There will always be risks. Grave possibilities. Future complications.

But God has gently, lovingly been speaking to me all day since that rude awakening. The realization that my fierce desire to protect my daughter and possessive, compelling love that I have for her, pales in comparison to the love my Father has for her...and for me. He who is acquainted with grief is not just aware, but attentive to her. Her special heart is not a "defect" as it has been labeled. Her future is not an uncertain mystery.

She was created, knit together in the womb. Fearfully and wonderfully made. All her days were already ordained, before one of them came to be! By HIM.

His love for me...for her...is incomprehensible. It is not a passive love, it is consuming, relentlessly pursuing, intentional, intimate, personal and passionate.

This video clip was shared at the end of church this morning. The truth of the person and love of the Lord for me was a wave of hope over the fear in my heart!

This is not the last time He will have to quiet me with His love. I am prone to wander. I am weak. My heart gives way to fear.

But He is not shaken.

Tonight the fierce Love of the Lord has captured my heart and wrapped me in an embrace of assurance and peace

Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus

Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free

Rolling as a mighty ocean

In its fullness over me.

Underneath me, all around me is the current of Thy love.

Leading onward, leading homeward, to Thy glorious rest above!