I would like to introduce you to KeGeta… “From God”
10 days back, in our ICU, I handed this angel to her crying parents…through tears I told them how sorry I was but there was nothing else we could do. Encouraging them to hold her, I took out her IV, removed all the tape and I let them know if they kept her on oxygen she would likely live minutes to hours, but without supplemental oxygen she would be with her heavenly Father in minutes. Despite every attempt to revive her I couldn’t get her oxygen saturation above 60%. I left feeling so helpless and lost…
Today she went home…alive and well in the arms of her proud parents.
Jewels already blogged about how this miracle happened, but the funny thing for me was a few nights after I had left her with her parents to die only to return an hour later and watch a miracle unfold, I read this story to the kids at bedtime. It’s from the “Jesus Storybook Bible” and although I read it to the kiddo’s, I think it was for me.
Now Jesus friends had been fishermen all their lives, but in all their years fishing on this lake they has never once seen a storm like this one. No matter how hard they struggled with their ropes and sails, they couldn’t control their boat. This storm was too big for them.
But the storm wasn’t too big for Jesus. “HELP!” the screamed. “Wake up! Quick, Jesus!” Jesus opened his eyes. “Rescue us! Save us!” they shrieked. “Don’t you care?” (Of course Jesus cared, and this was the very reason he had come—to rescue them and to save them.) Jesus stood up and spoke to the storm. “Hush!” he said That’s all. And the strangest thing happened…
The wind and the waves recognized Jesus’ voice. (They had heard it before, of course—it was the same voice that made them, in the very beginning). They listened to Jesus and they did what he said.
Immediately the wind stopped. The water calmed down. It glittered innocently in the moonlight and lapped quietly against the side of the boat, as if nothing had happened. The little boat bobbed gently up and down. There was a stillness and a great quiet all around.
Then Jesus turned to his wind-torn friends. “Why were scared?” he asked, “Did you forget who I Am? Did you believe your fears, instead of me?”
Jesus friends were quiet. As quiet as the wind and the waves. And into their hearts came a different kind of storm.
“What kind of man is this?” they asked themselves anxiously. “Even the winds and the waves obey him!” they said, because they didn’t understand. They didn’t realize yet that Jesus was the Son of God.
Jesus’ friends had been so afraid, they had only seen the big waves. They had forgotten that, if Jesus was with them, then they had nothing to be afraid of.
No matter how small their boat—or how big the storm.
Our Lord is so patient with us, and yet I am learning to see him and trust Him in the details. I read an AW Tozer quote this week, “If God were to take the Holy Spirit out of this world, much of what the church is doing would go right on; and nobody would know the difference.” I think that is true of the way I have practiced medicine, but I’m learning to be more dependent and find the deeper joy in these moments where God refuses to let anyone but Him get the glory.
Yet today was also bitter sweet—20 minutes after writing discharge orders for Kegeta, I was called to the bedside of a 18 month old little guy we had fought all morning to save from a horrible asthma attack. In respiratory failure for about 10 minutes by the time I arrived, he was already dead.
So this is where the choice comes in—by God’s grace I’m starting to understand what it means to choose Joy. A first-born child whom God reached down into death and brought back to life went home with her parents today. Yesterday I was privileged to be part of a evangelic outreach to a tribe on the Omo River whom has only heard the Gospel taught four times…FOUR TIMES. I don’t want for shelter, my kids have never known hunger, my wife is my best friend and the finest woman I know—and yet that is nothing compared to the joy that I have in choosing to rest in Christ.
Slowly…slowly I’m starting to learn in my heart, not just my head that I can choose Him in all things, no matter how small my boat feels or how big the storm seems.
