How can you give birth to a child.

And not be absolutely wrecked?

In what time and space did they become?

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A leap from void to existence!

The awe should break your resistance!

And pierce your soul with insistence! 

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Weeping, joy, fear, wonder- hearts drum.

A miracle- who would object?

When you give birth to a child

Isn’t your mind wrecked by the reality that new lives come into being every single day? Regardless whether you believe that life begins at conception or at some other instance along the way, the fact is that— it has a beginning. At one point in time, I did not exist and then suddenly, the next moment, I did. Biology has come a long way in understanding the conception and development of humans. I know that many can explain how cells divide, how some cells go on to build the heart and other cells build the liver- but who can explain their own consciousness? What makes us “alive”? Obviously, it is not just about having a functioning body, but we cannot even point to consciousness itself as proof that we are alive because no one (at least most people) would argue that a 4 month old baby that is not yet aware of itself is not alive nor that a person with a severe mental disability is not alive either. We don’t stop being alive whenever we are asleep and lose awareness of our surroundings and of ourselves. The point is that the conception and birth of a living, breathing being is nothing short of a miracle and no one understands that better than parents.Becoming a mother has brought me the most sorrow and the most joy, the most fear and the most hope. I have been challenged. I have learned. I continue to grow. Becoming a mother has taught me how to disarm bullets. 

I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to become a mom through foster care even before having my girls through birth. I would not have the outlook I have today, I would not be so aware of the things that matter and the things that don’t. Time wouldn’t have the depth of sacredness than it does now. I would not be as capable in allowing the hard things that happen to pierce me through so I could be healed more quickly. I do not try to be strong and thus absorb the poison bullets lodged in my body. I have learned to be soft and pliable- it is better for the bullets to pass you through with the least resistance. It hurts less this way, acknowledging that there are things you cannot change and sufferings that you cannot escape, gives those situations less power over you. 

Disarm the bullet by letting it pierce you all the way through. Allow it a beginning, middle, and end. Allow it it’s full breadth, it’s full story to develop and play through without interruption. When you do this, you leave no room for infection, no room for festering or aggravating wounds. Instead, you get a clean puncture. You allow for the immediate tending of God’s hands, for His healing touch. He will mend you with a patch of His infinite love and grace. A patch that you can look at and remember the pain without becoming a slave to it. A patch that becomes part of you and enhances your self. 

What I mean to say is that there is no need to try and deny the pain, the worry, or the anxiety you may be feeling in a situation. There is no need to hide or try to escape in whatever ineffective way we devise. It is better to allow yourself to fully experience the gravity of the situation. It’s ok to cry, to be candid about your feelings, to let yourself feel what you’re feeling. When we acknowledge the situation head on without resistance, we allow God to heal us and speak to our souls because we aren’t so busy trying to shut things out or to deny them. 

The fear that life’s storms incite in our lives often times make us resistant and unwilling to see what God may be telling us through the storm. It’s not always that He sent the storm; but that He wishes to guide us through whatever disaster the broken world is putting us through. While I often wish that I didn’t have the constant awareness that one of my daughter’s condition (congenital heart disease) is unpredictable and will need to be monitored her entire life, it is what is teaching me constant dependence on Christ. To be constantly aware of the frailty of the life of someone we so deeply love is to either to be constantly aware of God’s sovereignty, of His absolute safety and comforting control, or to be consistently suffocated in a cycle of fear, despair and anxiety of the unknown. We choose every day- every moment the thoughts and the doubts creep in, we have an opportunity to trust or to fear. We are faced with the same two choices over and over again, each morning when we open our eyes and see our children, every time we fear for their future, we get the choice of calling God Lord or liar. 

For the longest time, I viewed each complication, each surgery, each infection, as a challenge to overcome, as something to just get through. And while indeed, we didn’t want to stay there, I was missing the fact that it isn’t just about getting through it so we can move on. I was approaching these challenges in a way that was too basic. I kept thinking to myself “this is the last thing” and “after this, we can get on with normal life” or “Once this is over, I can relax”. Yet, after one of Hosanna’s cardiologist appointment’s revealed she would need yet another procedure done, something dawned on me. As I was starting to descend into the spiral of discouragement, and fear, God revealed something to me that abruptly stopped my fall into internal chaos. He said, “you’re missing the point Danae. I don’t want you to trust me only for a season. I don’t want your trust only in the midst of an active illness, I don’t want your dependence only to get you though the next surgery. I don’t want your faith only on the bad days, I want your trust always, it’s not a season, it’s a lifestyle.” Immediately something in my brain switched and I realized that if I didn’t want to live a life laden with debilitating anxiety, I had to change my thought patterns from “once this is over…” to “what’s next Lord? .. How will you show yourself this time? What do you wish to reveal about yourself now? What part of you do I still need to know?” 

This was summer of 2023, Hosanna’s last heart procedure to date. Life was pretty uneventful medically for the second part of the year which we were grateful for until January 2024. What started like a seemingly simple cold turned into a severe case of RSV/Pneumonia for both girls. I took the girls in to their pediatrician to get examined and they were not going to allow Hosanna to go back home because her heart condition would put her at risk of going downhill fast. Her oxygen levels were lower than normal which was concerning and her energy levels were down near zero. I watched the tech re take her oxygen levels several times looking concerned. She asked me to wait a minute as she left the room. From that moment I knew we weren’t going home that day. A few hours later, Gabe was at the nearest children’s hospital with Hosanna and I was home with Harmony who was also very sick (though not sick enough to require hospitalization) waiting for any updates. 

Having been through so much our first year, this was reliving a nightmare. Once Hosanna was home for good after her initial 5 month hospital stay after birth, we set out to do as much as possible to protect her from getting sick. We lived as hermits for a good while, not taking the girls out nor having many people over at once. It’s honestly still hard for me to take the girls to see family or to gatherings because of the fear of sickness. We were always praying for protection from sickness and we were about to learn that God always listens to us but sometimes His answers looks different than what we thought they would.

When we say “I trust God to protect my child from illness” we must be prepared for God’s way of protecting our child to be through the means of doctors and medicine. When we say “I trust God to heal my child” often times we are not trusting God- we are putting an expectation on Him, and then we base God’s trustworthiness on whether He does what we want or not. Trust is a reliance on the character of someone, not a guarantee that something will happen if we wish it hard enough. We live in a fallen, broken world that is overrun by death, disease and suffering- that is the norm. The fact we can catch glimpses of Gods grace in things like the healing of an illness is mind boggling on its own. Trusting God is knowing that whatever the outcome, He is good, and He will one day restore all things and there will be no more suffering. I did not “deserve” my daughter’s healing but I am eternally grateful that through the diligent care of many great nurses and doctors, God allowed my daughter to make a full recovery. Hosanna was in the hospital for 12 days (9 in the ICU) with severe RSV/pneumonia, she was one step from needing to be intubated as the doctors had done all they could to help her breathe and she was still struggling. 

Those 12 days were rough, I felt the bullet pierce me and although I knew I should let it go through me quickly, I instinctually slowed down its passage. It dragged through me, tearing through muscle and sinew leaving doubts, pain and fear imbedded in my cells. But it made it through despite the sludge it had to travel through. I understand that my experiences have really been a form of “lite suffering” and do not compare to what others have been through but I believe that being a mom, whether by birth or other means, is an experience that deeply connects me to other mothers in ways that are hard describe. 

As a mother, I marvel at the life that God has allowed me to grow and give birth to from my own body. As a mother, I can quickly drown in fear knowing that at any moment, just as quickly as these little ones were given to me, they could be taken. I will dare share a thought that at times crosses my mind- part of me is ashamed to have it but I believe many others have had it as well… I look at those I love, my family, my husband, and of course- my most precious children and I wish that I never knew them. I wish that I had not existed… because who can carry the loss of any one of these beings that we so deeply come to love? Sometimes it seems that it would have been better to know no love at all, to have stayed in the void. Safe. But how silly, how disrespectful a thought… what a display of relational affluence. What a lie from the enemy. Alas as the Victorian era poet Alfred Tennyson said “Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all” 

To be a mom, you must learn to disarm bullets. You must learn to take the hits in a way that allows for God’s healing, guidance, grace and mercy to patch you back up instead of selfishly trying to fix things yourself. You must learn to give up control over the most precious thing in your life. Our children are on borrowed time, just as we are, and the most valuable thing we can give them is our examples of how to trust the Lord during difficult moments. A hard, but crucial thing for us to learn is that we are neither the most important nor the best thing for our child- God is. 

Stay in awe of the precious beings that God has entrusted you with. Don’t let the mystery of that initial heartbeat be dampened by the challenges you encounter in life. You have a child! They exist, they’re right there in front of you! Don’t miss it! 

Tame your fear of the future with the awe of today.

Thrive through today with the words that you pray.

Conquer the past through The Lamb that was slain 

A mother knows they’re the enemy’s prey.

So stay the course, from His word do not stray

And disarm the bullets by becoming clay