My story . . . Part 4 of several

Thinking back on it now, I can’t picture exactly where and how I heard the news. It must have been from Barbara when I went to the hospital to see her and Matthew.

But here’s the gist of it. When Matthew was two days old, in the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU), a nurse observed him having what appeared to be seizures. This was a cause for concern, to say the least. The doctors ran various tests, which culminated in an EEG, which confirmed that he was having them. Two doctors gave us conflicting likely causes—one said it was due to a period of oxygen deprivation during the delivery, while another said it was due to hypoglycemia. But it didn’t really matter—they were happening. In addition to the seizures, over the first several days, the doctors noted that Matthew’s head was not growing, which was another cause for alarm.

In ensuing discussions with the doctors, we learned that the real concern was the possible long-term consequences. We were told that this abnormal activity was an indication that Matthew would have some degree of brain damage. There was no way of knowing the extent of the damage. It could be minimal, it could be significant. We would just have to see how it played out over time. Matthew’s progress would have to be closely monitored for the foreseeable future.

This certainly put a crimp in our neat little story. How does one react to this kind of news? Worry? Fear? Cries of “This can’t happen to me?” Well, to be very honest, my initial gut reaction was no real emotion at all—it didn’t really bother me. I simply told myself, “I’ve seen enough television medical dramas, and I’ve had enough friends with medical crises to know that in this situation, the thing to do is to get a second opinion.” If I asked a different doctor, he or she would tell me that Matthew was going to be all right. And if that doctor didn’t, I would ask a third and even a fourth doctor, until I was told what I wanted to hear.

Matthew would end up spending about three weeks in the NICU, and life became a whirlwind of travel to and from the hospital. During that time we spoke to a couple of different doctors. The problem is, each of them told us the exact same thing: it wasn’t a matter of if Matthew would have brain damage, but rather to what degree.

Finally, in early June, it was time for us to bring Matthew home. On the night before we did this, a doctor took Barbara and me aside and asked us to have a seat. She proceeded to “give it to us straight” one last time. In short, she told us that on the one end, Matthew might suffer only minimal effects of brain damage, while at the other extreme, he might never progress beyond the level of a two week old. He would probably end up somewhere in the middle. With all that had gone on in these three weeks, Barbara and I left the hospital pretty shaken.

For me, it was during these days when a feeling of fear began to sink in. I had gotten my second, third, and fourth opinions, and now I had to face reality. Around this time, something dawned on me. In the chaos of the situation, in the midst of my great plan to go out and find a doctor who would tell me what I wanted to hear, there is one thing I had not done. I had not prayed about this. Most of my family and friends know that I am a Christian, so it is very awkward for me to admit this. But I hadn’t. So, over his final days in the NICU, I started to pray that if it was possible, that God would heal Matthew, or at least make his brain damage as minimal as possible.

Now, I ask that you read this next part very carefully.

After a few days, as I prayed, I felt a very strong conviction come over me. I got the unmistakable sense that God was speaking to me—laying something on my heart. No, I did not encounter a burning bush in my back yard. I was not visited by an angel in my driveway. I was not blinded by the light of the sun on I-64. But more than any time in my life, I knew that God was telling me something. And this is what I heard Him say:

“You know, Dave, you say you ‘believe’ in me . . . you say that you have ‘faith’ . . . as long as things are going well, as long as you have this nice house and nice cars . . . as long as you have a healthy family, and a nice big church, and lots of friends who like you, and your affluent neighborhood, and your great Chesapeake school system for your child. BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT FAITH IS! Hebrews 11:1 says, ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’”

This had long been one of my “favorite” verses of Scripture, but to be honest, I never really meditated on it all that much. One thing was certain in my mind, though—I could not see any evidence, any way, that this situation with Matthew would turn out well. As the days passed, I continued to hear God convicting me in this matter, telling me something that started to help me re-shape things in my mind. He said:

“Your son is going to be okay. I’m God, I can handle that. BUT THE REAL ISSUE HERE IS THAT YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH FAITH!”