"1 IF THE LORD HAD NOT BEEN ON OUR SIDE— LET ISRAEL SAY—2 IF THE LORD HAD NOT BEEN ON OUR SIDE WHEN PEOPLE ATTACKED US,3 THEY WOULD HAVE SWALLOWED US ALIVE WHEN THEIR ANGER FLARED AGAINST US 4 THE FLOOD WOULD HAVE ENGULFED US, THE TORRENT WOULD HAVE SWEPT OVER US, 5 THE RAGING WATERS WOULD HAVE SWEPT US AWAY..." - PSALM 124:1-5
It may sound strange coming from a pacifist, but I do believe that there is a time to fight. A fight not against armies or adversaries, but a fight against disease and disability. A fight intended not to snuff out life, but a fight aimed at trying to preserve it. While the healthy and the strong go about their day expecting little interruption or inconvenience, the sick and the weak spend the day fighting cancers and infections trying their hardest to kill them.
A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit some good friends in Columbus, Ohio who find themselves on the frontline of such a battle. I first met Justin and Joy a couple years ago while working along side them at our church camp in northeast Ohio. Joy was not able to work at church camp this year because she was pregnant with their first child. Well about a month and half ago, Joy gave birth to a precious baby boy named Beckham.
However, Beckham experienced severe complications during the delivery that had a devastating impact on his tiny kidneys. He was immediately put on dialysis and admitted to the hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where I visited with Justin and Joy for just a few minutes. Now this was my first time on a NICU floor and was immediately struck by the atmosphere of serious urgency permeating the unit.
Then as I walked the halls in search of Beckham's room I quickly noticed something else. There was not a single empty room on a floor with dozens and dozens of beds. Justin and Joy would later tell me of a waiting list for families needing a bed to open up. Any prior assumption I had that healthy childbirth was the norm had been completely obliterated. Like all believers juggling faith and doubt, I felt both a need to praise God that NICUs even exist to give sick babies a fighting chance and yet I had to ask, why do NICUs need to exist at all?
My visit with Justin and Joy only lasted 30 minutes, but it was enough to leave me considerably humbled and meaningfully ashamed. Humbled by the grace of having good health going on 35.95 years. Ashamed by my grumbling about trivial frustrations and complaints over brief disappointments. All heartache I've ever known is a drop in the bucket that is totally unlike the deep wells of suffering inside parents of sick children.
Even the lost of a brother is but a ripple of grief compared to the giant deluge of heartache crashing in upon parents unable to shield their child from awful sickness and terrible pain. If there is any encouragement I could give to NICU parents like Justin and Joy, then it would be Psalm 124.
The psalmist declares that you and your baby are not alone in the fight. Besides having great doctors and saintly nurses, you have the God of the universe in your corner fighting with you against the forces of brokenness. And He will keep you from being consumed by the fires of your heartache, and save you from drowning in the tears of your grief.
As for those blessed with good health like me, let us do all we can to send reinforcements and supplies to those who are in the fight for life. Because now is not a time for polite appeasement with despair, nor an occasion to peacefully concede to hopelessness. For baby boy Beckham and countless precious babies like him, now is a time to fight.
CJE