For over a year, we fought this beast and Maggie endured much. She had surgery to remove the initial tumor and a Central line put in (a tube that sticks out of her chest to more easily access her blood vessels for less needle pricks). Maggie went thru 6 HARD rounds of chemo. After one really difficult one she was put on morphine for her mouth sores. Maggie almost overdosed from the morphine as her body wouldn't metabolize it - she received 2 doses of Narcan and had to have a head CT as she still wasn't responding normally. It is scary when all of the nurses of the unit and the on-call resident are all in your room at about 5am. Maggie went thru 2 stem cell transplants (where you receive enough chemo that it could kill you and then you get a transfusion of stem cells that "saves you" - hospitalized a little less than 4 weeks for each of those). Then she had 12 radiation treatments that took place 3.5 hours away from home. I had to give her approximately 90 shots over the course of her treatment - and I truly hate shots. I watched Maggie vomit all over the place and have diarrhea at the same time. She literally had no hair anywhere on her little body. I watched her blood pressure soar to 200+/120 and then get in a plane with her and get lifelined to to the Children's hospital 3 hours from home. I felt so helpless - if I could have done something for her I would have in a heartbeat. There was nothing I could do to take it away.
It was sometime in the hospital that I realized that God understood what it was like to watch a child go thru this pain and trauma. When I think of Jesus the King of Kings being born in a stable which is so unfit for royalty, I wince as I remember fighting for better accommodations for my daughter. As I thought about it, I realized that one major difference was that His Son died. Another difference was that He had a choice. He could have taken His Son off of that cross - he could have saved His Son from that horrible death but he didn't. At that moment He chose to love ME (and you) over His Son. Wow! I'm sorry but I can't think of anyone I love over my family.
Ephesians 3, Paul writes that he wants us to know "how wide and high and long and deep is the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge". What knowledge surpasses knowledge? Experience. In that hospital room, I experienced God's love in a new way.
This love makes me feel secure in Him and therefore increases my faith in Him and that what He puts in front of me will all come out ok in the end. Because of that faith, I am willing to find out what new challenge God has for me and I don't care how odd that I look because His Love his holding me in his hand.
May we all get a different perspective of the magnitude of the first Christmas present ever given: Jesus!
Maggie is cancer free today and we saw SO MANY miracles thru the battle and learned so much about HIM. He is Faithful!
Comments