There was so much pain, so many tears... so much through the night in the ER. I left at one point and cried til I puked. It has been a scathing fiery trial all of this. I stood in that sterile bathroom crowded by a million germs, looked in the mirror at my swollen red eyes, and asked God to strengthen me for what was ahead. I took a breath of courage and walked back into the room, swallowing down a gigantic lump of fears and asked God to give me strength one more time.
Britton was thrashing and crying and that is gut wrenching for a momma to watch. I held him and laid my head on his pillow my face next to his. I patted his cheek and refused to let him see any renegade tears. They used a spinal needle to inject into his shoulder joint some pain meds. He just stares, so solemn, so resigned, my stomach knotted tighter and I swallowed down the panic one more time. As I looked up I could see things from his perspective .
Then I just felt those traitorous tears pouring down my face against my will. What a nightmare this is for him. It takes 8 people for conscious sedation. All around him, doing all kinds of things. It's like a busy subway station of activity. The doctor yanking and pulling hard because he's suppose to be asleep, but with max doses of two meds, he's still fighting them through so much pain. What to do, how can I help? Without conscious thought I decided to sing in a whisper. I know how crazy that sounds, right? But I sang, "You make me brave, you make me brave..." While I held his face and patted his cheek. The busy ER became very quiet, and got still. The presence of the Lord permeated the room, and everyone paused to breath it in. Britton slowly drifted off into the drug induced sleep needed. Then the spell was broken and the worker bees went back at it. They spent hours pulling and yanking, manipulating. They let Randy work on it for a while after they each took turns and were all worn out from each valiant attempt. They flipped him on his belly, and the battle began again. The swelling made it far more difficult. Bottles of drugs everywhere, doctors calling out for more drugs, one yanking another monitoring, momma just praying and not caring what anyone thinks, daddy holding both his feet, wishing he could do this for him. It felt like a Mash unit in a war zone. Welcome to the complications of autism. sighhhhhhhhh
In the middle of it, the nurse says to me. "You are a great mom!" But then her eyes filled up with guilt. I turned from what I was doing because I heard the Lord whisper, "Pay attention!" She said, "I have twins with autism. They are three. I have no patience for it. I am not the mother you are." A tear escaped and she wiped it away so no one in her professional life would see. The confession was left hanging as the battle intensified. Later I went to my car to get Britton's much loved quilt full of holes. She was sitting on the curb smoking, with the front of her scrubs soaked from tears. I stopped, and paused. I have no pride left because autism sanded that away years ago, I look down at her and confess, "You know, when he was three, I was nothing like I am now." She looked up and stared at me so intently. Like she was searching deep inside me for some hope. I told her how it's not possible to have the patience the understanding that you "learn in the valley of the shadow." That it is earned, won on the battle field of Love. That God would be faithful to teach her, to mold her into the mother her boys would need. Trusting Him would be how she could do this. Holding on to Him and reaching up to the heavens would give her the courage that was not her own. Then she let me pray with her, she let me console HER. It was a holy moment, I felt God all over us. She was very professional and hopped up because there was a job to do, and Britton's shoulder was still out. We tucked our secret alliance away, and we both went back to the battlefield. We pretended that we had not shared that still moment where God had paused a battle long enough to give aide to someone in pain. That precious moment, where a war hardened, old General reminded the fresh young private that she too will someday wear the battle scars of a thousand wars. She too, will someday pave the way for those young frightened warriors behind her, praying someone has an answer, looking to her for courage. I pray that I encouraged her to trust God. I pray that I gave her hope that the battle is far less intense, and not as bloody as it use to be.
The reason? We now know our enemy, we are a huge army of battle torn families and we have better weapons. "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." The battle is so fierce, those on the front lines for endless years have pointed out the enemy over and over only to be told the enemy is YOU. But mom's know, daddy's know, doctors are beginning to know. The truth seeps up from the cesspool of deception, and is beginning to permeate even the hardest of hearts. We know the day our child was changed from what he was meant to be into... something else. We know the day we were convinced to let poison be injected into them. We KNOW our enemy. But that is not the most important lesson of this night.
This night the lesson is, God does not, will NEVER waste our suffering. He will take us bleeding and bruised, and change us into someone stronger than humanly possible. Then He will instill courage into your heart and give you love so strong you will know it is from another world. Yes, even on the frontline, He shows up and says, "Use this moment, don't let this go to waste." How I love his voice.
The reason? We now know our enemy, we are a huge army of battle torn families and we have better weapons. "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." The battle is so fierce, those on the front lines for endless years have pointed out the enemy over and over only to be told the enemy is YOU. But mom's know, daddy's know, doctors are beginning to know. The truth seeps up from the cesspool of deception, and is beginning to permeate even the hardest of hearts. We know the day our child was changed from what he was meant to be into... something else. We know the day we were convinced to let poison be injected into them. We KNOW our enemy. But that is not the most important lesson of this night.
This night the lesson is, God does not, will NEVER waste our suffering. He will take us bleeding and bruised, and change us into someone stronger than humanly possible. Then He will instill courage into your heart and give you love so strong you will know it is from another world. Yes, even on the frontline, He shows up and says, "Use this moment, don't let this go to waste." How I love his voice.
When the fierce battle ended and the beat up boy/man laid exhausted, with a bruised and bloody shoulder so swollen you aren't sure it's not something else growing under his skin. We all stepped back and breathed. He's laid out on the table, beaten, shoulder shredded and bleeding. However, the wicked battle was won for that day.
Randy and I sat in the well worn plastic chairs, and held hands. Holding each other up, having fought one more time and won. Even we are surprised. The exhaustion is so deep at this point I laugh saying, "even my hair is tired." We both laughed with tired eyes so full of the pain watching our child suffer. The emotion swells and I started to cry because, well, because.
I hugged him and we just held each other. We wondered how in the world we have survived this long. Love is a powerful force. If I could step back and look with spiritual eyes, I believe this is what I would've seen. I felt God's spirit like a breath of wind, a blue swirl of smoke, wrap us, caress us, love us. I would see his spirit whisper to those who joined us in the battle that day say, "Notice, this battle weary family trusts God. Yes they are weary, but they are infused with my strength. They believe, and I am with them. That means, if YOU believe I will be with you too." The battle tried angels having seen so many of God's children through countless wars, would be caressing, and massaging Britton's head. Fingers doing circles on his temples as they blow the breath of heaven across his exhausted flesh. Still confused why God so loved this world and these broken humans.
As the early morning began to open it's heavy eyelids, and rear it's sleepy head from the earth's soft bed. Britton's bone-tired, and drained body lay gently breathing in some restoration. It was a strange for the emergency room to be so still. The doctor's shift was over, and she stopped by to make sure all was well before we left. She said, "I'd like to thank you for what you did for us tonight." Randy and I looked at each other and I raised my tired and questioning eyebrows and shrugged. She looked almost grief stricken as she poured out her life's work. "We see the dredge of society here. You work and you work and after awhile you forget the people are even human. The majority of people who come here are so entitled, so demanding. Sure you get to help some people. Someone goes into cardiac arrest, you bring them back. It's something. But most the time, we just patch up drug addicts and fight them over more drugs. Watch the elderly come to the ER in hopes that a family member will finally visit as they die of loneliness. A baby dehydrated because the mom is too drunk to remember he needs fed more than once. Tonight, you showed us the best of what humans can be. You actually gave an entire Emergency Room hope that there are still good people in the world." She said a lot more than that, but that was the jest of it. Randy and I were rendered speechless by the encounter. We had teased each other early in the night, before the battle got fierce. That coming to the ER was like going to Walmart, you never know what you're gonna see. The doctor's face squeezed with emotions, and she put her thumb and finger up to prevent tears. We didn't really know what to say to her. So, I reached over and patted her and told her how much we appreciated all she had done. How wonderful it is to have a doctor who listens and cares. That what she does matters even when no one notices, she makes a difference. She seemed choked with the never received appreciation. She turned to leave because she had a flood of emotions rising so fast she had to get to her car before they spilled out all over the harsh reality she works in.
I have no idea how, or why we are going to have to have Britton's surgery in Philadelphia. I'm still astonished as I think of how all that came to be. An another autism mom who heard our story contacted another autism mom, and made sure I knew how she had fought this same battle. She reached out, she loved, she cared for a family just because she had battled the same monster. (God Bless you Val! God uses all our pain!)
But after tonights battle, I'm believing that God has laid out a plan. That we are to obey and follow his lead, and "step quickly to the battle line." I laughed as I cried after the doctor left us standing there pretty much with nothing left to say. Stunned, amazed, at how God had taken so much horrific tragedy and done something incredible right in front of our reluctant eyes. Then shown it right to us, (a rare occurrence) while we blinked back astonished gratitude that He allowed us to see Him at work.
He's just like that isn't he? One of my favorite scriptures is, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.… 2Corin 1:3
That pretty much sums up last night. It's good when you get to see beauty in the ashes. When you're life has burned so out of control and you stand in the rubble and ask God why things have been allowed to go so far. But like a flower growing up out of volcanic ash, it unfurls it's colorful face tilting up, seeking the light of the SON. As I contemplated these things in my minds eye, I realized that the beauty, and resilence of this chosen flower cannot grow in any other soil.
Luke 12:27
"Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
