Recently, during a sermon the pastor said something that resonated with me. It was one of those moments when your heart quickens, you feel the goosebumps starting to rise on your arms – where inherently my spirit recognized the Holy Spirit speaking to me. 

He posed this question: “If I’ve come to the hospital and experience lifesaving healing, why would I then close the doors of the hospital? Wouldn’t I want to extend that same healing to someone else?”

Ahhhh, I thought, The Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20)

………

In February, Townes turned five. We went to breakfast that morning with his Grams and Pops asnd as I watched him ride his bike home, I looked at Scott and said (as if this was the first time it had ever occurred to me), “We went from life support to living.” Wow.

And now, today, we celebrate Townes 5^th Heartiversary!

In some ways, it’s hard to fathom that five years ago, we gathered over 100 people together on a zoom call to pray and take communion over Townes tiny 7 lb body before they wheeled him back to prepare him for his lifesaving open heart surgery.  

But in other ways, if I allow myself (which I don’t very often), I can close my eyes and immediately be transported back. All my senses become activated. My eyes see that I am surrounded by white sterile walls, my ears are pierced with the constant beeps from all the machines while my mind tries to calibrate his oxygen levels, my nose picks up the smell of cleaning agents and finally my insides start to ache as I see all the lines and cords flowing from my son’s body. It’s here during this whiplash moment, that I am reminded of how it all began – with a terminal diagnosis.

The graveness of what we faced with each passing day only looming brighter in my mind’s eye. As Townes was fighting to live each day, what floated just beneath the surface was the glaring reality that his body would become too tired; his heart having worked in overdrive would not last. His other organs working overtime to compensate for his broken heart would run out of steam.

I can remember, with serene clarity, the day I knew we had passed the climax of his health and begun our descent.

“Week seven vividly stands out. When I walked into my son’s room, I didn’t see a baby resting while waiting. I saw a baby on life support, a baby fighting with all his might while his body failed him. The coloring of his skin was turning bluer, ashier, and the whites of his eyes were more yellow. My heart knew what I refused to say aloud to anyone: This baby, my baby, my son, was dying.” (excerpt from Ridiculously Hopeful)

But then, from life support to living because just a few short days later our son received the most precious and valuable gift, a new heart.

I still struggle to explain all of what we experienced. The Lord was so intentional with both Scott and I, individually, but also together. Unless you are us, it feels too hard to grasp. To put into words all the ways, both small and large, Jesus met us there is impossible. While I have shared so many stories and spiritual principles he imparted on us, there are still some I have held close. It’s not because I am afraid to share but more perhaps because I am not sure I have yet unfolded what lies within the lesson.

And so, I have asked myself, isn’t that the beauty and mystery of God simultaneously? That years later, he is still ministering to me through other people.  Somehow, the Lord can still draw on my experience five years ago to teach me, to encourage me, to propel me forward on his mission.  

While yes, we have for all intents and purposes literally and figuratively experienced living through an uncertain period where physical life and death were real and tangible – these were outcomes one way or another but also during this time Jesus tended to me, to Scott, to my family, our friends. He drew beautiful pictures and spoke in stories. Jesus illustrated his goodness, his mercy, his unconditional love and he even taught me biblical lesson after biblical lesson.

One of the most profound spiritual lessons he showed me was about the power in words – do they bring life, or do they bring death? It is easy to get caught up in the new vernacular of language and the sayings, the slogans of today and rarely do we give much extra thought so let me toss up an easy example that we can all probably relate too.

            “I would die for that piece of cake and kill for that slice of pie!”

As I even write about cake and pie my mouth is watering just thinking about a warm slice of peach pie with vanilla ice cream (ohhhhh sweet summer, coming soon) but have you ever stopped to ask yourself why we use words like ‘die’ and ‘kill’ when we know those are not life-giving?

Much of the time it’s not until we are faced with a contrast or as I have contemplated so many times over these last months a juxtaposition that we can see the stark and transparent difference.

It’s no surprise that Scott and I encountered doctor after doctor during my pregnancy and even more once Townes arrived. So many times, we would leave our prenatal appointments feeling the weight of what we carried. The dire outlook and constant bombardment of less than positive information was overwhelming, and yet all we could do was wait.

Then our precious son was born. We waited for the doctors to make their assessments, conduct their exams, preform his first procedure to learn that his only hope was to become an organ recipient of a new heart. We waited for almost an entire week to be able to lift his small blue body plugged to life support off his bed so we could hold him. We watched and once again waited as teams examined him, poked and prodded him day after day.

BUT, isn’t it in the discomfort of waiting where we are contorted, molded, sometimes mended, and changed? In the uncertainty of the waiting, we become our most vulnerable allowing the Lord an opportunity to use anything both natural and unnatural to draw our eyes to him?

It was here in what felt like the darkest and sometimes loneliest place where the Lord illustrated to me the metaphysical (philosophical study of reality outside the physical world and through first principals). I started to conceptually understand the heavenly concept of light versus dark and the biblical application of death and life in the power of our tongue (Proverbs 18:21) through a simple measure: names.

The Lord used the contrasting of ideas to nudge me, to hold me accountable to an unwavering faith in his promises: to give us a hope and a future, to provide a confidence in his goodness, and to demonstrate that in everything we were under his wings (Psalm 91).

So, if you will allow me, I have written out the names of many doctors we encountered (and still do) in our journey. **Side note: please know all these people are wonderful and this illustration is in no way about the level of care we received, its simply allowing me to explain how the Lord can use anything and everyone to teach us about his heart.

Two of the names listed below represent our visits before Townes was born while the rest came after his birth.

Graves                         Clay                            Christian                     Virgin             

Killen                          Lamb                           Pope

Can you see it? Dark vs Light. Death vs Life.

John 1:5 says, “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

And just like that this epiphany transcended me from life support to living, to a place of living with joy even in the hardship. I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I reigned from a place of victory because of Christ and despite the circumstances facing me. I believe this is available to all of us – I believe Jesus longs to take each of us from life support to living.

“We look away from the natural realm and we focus our attention and expectation onto Jesus who birthed faith within us and who leads us forward into faith’s perfection. His example is this: Because his heart was focused on the joy of knowing you would be his, he endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation and now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God!” Hebrews 12:2 TPT

As we celebrate Townes 5^th milestone today, the miracle of organ transplantation, and the legacy of another, I can’t help but to raise a ‘Hallelujah’. I praise him for all he has taught me, for the lessons of the future, for his unconditional and unwavering acceptance and love. As the lyrics of one of Scott’s new favorite songs by Adam Doleac and Thomas Rhett goes

“There’s a bar named Jesus

Where the light stays on

And there’s no such thing as too far gone, too far gone

Where the well ain’t whiskey and it don’t run dry

And there’s always room for one more inside”

And I pray that we are all granted spiritual eyes to see beyond the physical. That we confidently walk our daily lives on the truth Hebrews 11:1, “now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

My hope is that through our journey, Jesus has also been able to minister to you; and through Townes’s testimony we are reminded of the true nature of our Savior.

• The power of prayer moves mountains.
• God makes the impossible possible.
• Hope can be found even in the hardest and darkest of circumstances.
• God is moving on your behalf—even when you can’t see it because things are rarely as they seem.
• That he loves you and there is nothing that can disqualify you
• You are welcome – he always has a place for you

And lastly, that we will all remember our call in Matthew 28:18-19 as followers of Christ. May we ask the Lord to reveal ways in which we can move mountains for the Kingdom, spread the joy of the Lord, encourage those in our community, lead the lost back to our Shepperd, and that we always inspire Hope so that Jesus may use us as a conduit to help others go from life support to living.

Raise a Hallelujah,

Maleah