He Listened

For the most part, I see new people every day at work, (for those of you who don't know, I perform cardiopulmonary stress tests) and I get into interesting conversations with some of my patients.  The day before my amniocentesis, I was at work like any normal day.  My mind was a little distracted that week to say the least.  My patient, which I later found out was a retired pastor, was talking about how sometimes he likes to buy himself gifts.  His most recent gift to himself was the version of the bible called "The Message."  A huge smile came over his face when I told him I had a copy of The Message as well.  He said, "When you get home, I want you to look up Psalm 116,  I want you to pay attention to the first part of the first verse."  I said, "Ok," he smiled and that's all that was said. 

Well of course, my curious self could not wait until I got home.  I knew that my mom had The Message as well, so I called her.  She read the first line of the first verse to me; it said, "I love God because he listened to me."  (This was the part that he wanted me to pay the most attention to.)  My mom read a little further as we both cried, "listened as I begged for mercy. He listened so intently as I laid out my case before him." 

I felt this huge relief!!  I had prayed and prayed for McKinley, begging God to heal her and not confirm the doctors suspicions.  I just knew God sent this man to tell me that he heard me and everything was going to be okay!

I had the amniocentesis the next day and a few days later received the devastating news that McKinley had Trisomy 13.  If you read my post in November, Anger into Thankfulness, this was when the anger began.  I was angry because I felt like God didn't listen to me.

I haven't talked about this to many people however, our journey to McKinley took a little longer than expected.  Thankfully, no fertility drugs were needed, just a matter of balancing out some of my hormones to get us on the right track.  By the time we found out we were pregnant, it had taken a little over a year, way longer than we had ever anticipated. 

During that year-long process, I prayed to God many, many times about it.  I wanted to be a mother so badly and I begged God for this.

The other day, I was thinking about the last few months.  For some reason, that man's face appeared to me, smiling like he had that day.  It suddenly dawned on me!  I prayed and begged God for over a year to let me become a mother.  He HAD listened to me.  This brought me the biggest sense of peace that day.

When we were in the hospital and had McKinley baptized, the Chaplin looked at me and said, "You ARE a good mother." 

He listened.....