Sitting by her hospital bed, I stroked her hair.  She was my miracle; the one that I had pursued with and for over the last 9 years. I looked over at the medicine pumps on the poles that we had drug around the Intensive Care Unit over the past 3 months.

15.

Fifteen pumps on 3 poles.  I put my hand on  her chest, and felt it rhythmically going up and down with the help of a machine.   I remember what I told her the day she was born, “I will fight for you for as long as you fight.”

I whispered those exact words into her ear while I pressed my head against her cheek.

I remember the scripture that was heavy on my heart those four and a half months that she spent in NICU, waiting for a heart transplant:

“Pursue: for you shall surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.”  ~1 Samuel 30:8b

Sitting In ICU, 9 years later, I wondered what that verse meant now.  I wondered what I had pursued for and what to do with all that “pursuing”.  I didn’t “recover all” because I knew she wouldn’t be coming home this time..

Emma Grace passed away on Good Friday.  April 22, 2011.

She had recovered all.

She had pursued all that she could.

Which meant that my pursuing with her was over.

Yet, my pursuing with my Savior was far from that.

I thought I was prepared for that day.

I  so was not.

I didn’t know what to do with myself.  One day I was sitting by her bed, stroking her hair; the next day she just wasn’t there.  I really struggled with what to “be” with out her here.  I was always “Emma’s Mom”.

I was lost without her.

I still am.

I knew of Gods grace because He allowed her to be born. I knew of Gods mercy because he always brought her home.

I am learning His sovereignty, because this last time He didn’t…

5+ months later, I am still learning about His sovereignty.  I am still learning what “pursuing” truly means.  Not a day goes by that I do not miss my little girl, but I can pursue through this pain because I know that this life is just a speck in time.  I know that I will see her and touch her again.  I know that my ways are not His ways, even though that is so hard to understand.

And I know that she is looking down, saying “Mom, if you could only see what I see…”

And that makes the “pursuing” so very worth it….

{if you haven’t read the  book “Choosing to See” by Mary Beth Chapman or listened to  the CD “Beauty Will Rise” by Steven Curtis Chapman, I highly recommend you do so.  Also if you have lost a child, I highly recommend the book “Praying through Sorrows” by Christ Jackson and Dutch Sheets. I also recommend “Heaven” by Randy Alcorn, which gives a very biblical  description of what Heaven looks like.}

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