Tag Archives: prayer

In Search of the Happiest Ending

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I was writing a post titled “Why I Am Not a Food Blogger” when the phone rang.

It was Tarica’s doctor, and we talked about brain surgery.

I hung up, all my laughter gone.

Call me blind, call me naive, call me a towering monument of faith, but for the first time, I realized that our epilepsy story might not have a happy ending.

I’ve shared maybes and what ifs and questions and fears, but always, rock-solid in the back of my mind, I believed everything would come out right in the end. I’ve prayed “Thy will be done,” convinced that His will meant a seizure-free daughter.

But what if she will always have seizures?

I’m sure you thought of this possibility, from a detached distance, with the advantage of having the facts without the emotions. I’ve even said it is a possibility, said she might not ever be seizure-free, but I didn’t feel it as I did this morning, as a blow to my mother-heart.

She may never be healed this side of Glory.

I do not know if I can bear the thought.

* * *

I heard a story recently of a boy whose parents asked God to take their son Home while he was young if he would grow up to defy God when he was older. The boy died in a freak accident sometime after that. All his peers grew up and rejected God. The father professed that he never regretted his prayer.

That story hit me hard. We have three children in heaven by miscarriage, and it’s my greatest prayer that the rest of our family would someday join them. I have prayed, in a more innocent past, wincing slightly, “whatever it takes, God.”

What if it takes seizures?

What if seizures will make the difference between heaven and hell for our daughter? For our other children? For…for me?

After hearing the story of that boy, I had begun to pray, “God, if seizures help my daughter get to heaven, then help us to accept them with grace.”

But I was still convinced that God would heal her. And not just no-seizures-while-on-medication healed. I meant healed healed, as in no more seizures ever and no more medication. Ever. I hate what drugs do to her.

This is not too much to expect from a God who can do anything.

But what if He doesn’t do this?

* * *

Again and again, God has worked good in my life through hardship. Without pain, I am crusty and independent and proud. Pain turns me to God, and God turns pain to good.

What if living with this particular pain will keep us soft toward God and compassionate toward others?

It could. It might. It has.

To those of you who yearn every day for the child(ren) beyond your reach, this might sound unthinkable, but it was easier for me to grieve a miscarriage that it is to imagine my daughter living with epilepsy till death do them part. Miscarriage was only my pain, softened by the knowledge that my child is safe in Jesus’ arms. It hurts more to watch my children suffer than it does to miss them because they are with Jesus.

(And if my words hurt you, I am sorry. I’m not belittling your pain. If you’ve read the book I wrote on miscarriage, you know I know how great and terrible that grief is. Those of you who have emailed me to share your stories are daily in my prayers. I wish I could take away your pain, but I trust that God can also turn it into good.)

I hate the thought that my children need to suffer, but what’s been good for me will surely be good for them. God can do this for my children—turn their pain into good. I know this, but it feels a little like those times when the children pile into the wagon and fly down the lane.

I don’t want to watch. I don’t want to see them get hurt.

What if God knows we will be better off with seizures than without them?

Achieving seizure freedom has always been the happy ending I envisioned for us. But if that freedom would come at the expense of the happiest ending ever, then no, I do not want it.

I choose heaven over healing.

And it shatters my mother-heart.

Inadvertent Lessons in Prayer

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On Tuesday, Micah got sick.

On Thursday, I got sick.

So when Jenica started yelling at 2:30 on Saturday morning, I had a pretty good idea what awaited me in the girls’ bedroom.

Jenica, who has been startled awake far too many times to major and minor medical events, has developed a hair-curling method of getting help. It consists of bellowing many words, sounding something like what I was hearing right then: “MOM! MOM! Tarica’s THROWING UP! MOOOOMMMM! TARICA needs YOU! MOM! COME QUICK! TARICA’S throwing UUUPPP! MOOOMMM!”

When Tarica wants help at night, she appears like a shadow beside my bed, barely visible, barely audible in the dark. Not Jenica. She stays on the scene and shrieks.

I leaped out of bed and raced for the girls’ room.

But I shall mercifully spare you the description of what I found. If you are a mother, you need no help picturing the scene. If you are not a mother, you don’t need any reason to dread becoming one.

I’ll stick with this simple summary: What little was spared in the first round of vomiting was nailed in the second, and it took me two buckets, two sets of pajamas, a set of clean sheets, and an hour to clean up her and the room.

Finally back in bed, I didn’t fall asleep until well after 4:00, and at 4:28, Jenica started hollering again.

This time, Tarica used the bucket I had belatedly provided.

At 6:30, Tarica shuffled to my bedside and whispered for help to go to the bathroom.

At 8:00—we were unashamedly sleeping in after such a night—Jenica yelled for help again.

After a shaky Tarica was tucked back in, I returned to my bed and collapsed, but not to sleep. I was too worried to relax. Would this be a repeat of that scare in January?

I thumbed out a text and sent it to family and a few friends: Please pray. Tarica just threw up 4 the 4th time since 2:30. In an hour, I should b giving her her meds & it will take a miracle 4 her 2 keep them down. If she cant keep the meds down, we’ll have 2 take her 2 the hospital 2 get the meds thru IV.

You know those red banners that run along the bottom of a TV screen when a news channel is on? It’s a running list of updates and breaking news and…whatever. I think of those banners when a particular need weighs on me.

I got up, got dressed, got breakfast on, and despite these ordinary events, a scarlet thread of prayer ran through my mind, an unending cry for help. When the replies to my text started coming in, I steadied, felt the prayers holding us up. It happens every time, and every time, it’s as amazing as the first time.

When 9:00 came, I decided to push off the medication just a little, to give time for her stomach to settle. But at 10:00, I knew I had to do it.

I took her morning dose up to her room and climbed on the bed beside her. “Tarica, I need to give you your medicine so you don’t have seizures. But since your tummy is all mixed up, I think we should ask God to help you to not throw it up. Do you want to pray?”

“You pray,” she said and closed her eyes, and so I did.

I felt a little silly praying. Although I had big worries about the hours ahead, it was such a small thing to say aloud, hands clasped beside my daughter.

She took the medication, and my ticker tape of prayer kicked up a notch as the minutes passed. If she could just keep it down for about half an hour, we wouldn’t need to redose. If she did throw it up after that, we ran the risk of seizures. Even with the medication, she still was more likely to seize than usual, since illness can trigger seizures.

She kept the drugs down. Thirty minutes turned into an hour. I moved her to the living room sofa. When the rest of the family sat down for lunch, I gave her some ginger ale to sip.

Over lunch, out of Tarica’s hearing, Jenica said quietly to me, “God answered our prayers, didn’t He? Tarica didn’t throw up again.”

But that afternoon, Tarica ran a fever, and I ran a few worrisome scenarios through my mind. We weren’t out of the woods yet.

And then Tarica said to me, her cheeks flushed and eyes heavy, “God answered our prayers, didn’t He? I didn’t throw up again.”

It was then, finally, that I realized I was looking at this all wrong. I was like the Israelites at the Red Sea, screaming at Moses for taking them into the wilderness to die, when before them lay a not-to-be-missed opportunity for God to reveal His power.

This is what faith means: Instead of an illness, a Red Sea, I should see an opportunity. This was a chance for God to show His care for us.

This was also an opportunity for our children to see God’s power at work in ways they understood and appreciated. Sure, God rescued the children of Israel at the Red Sea, but when God answers the prayer of a twenty-first century child, that makes God more real than a dozen Sunday school lessons ever can.

And not only could God become more real to our children, but they were also learning from our response. God wasn’t the only one with opportunities in this. Every time we faced a problem out of our control, we had the chance to teach our children by our example. Did they see us respond in faith or in fear? Those simple prayers I prayed with them might be the most important prayers in their young lives.

If this illness was actually all these opportunities rolled into one event, then I should be thanking God for it.

Put this way, in black letters on a white page, it sounds a bit too much like an insipid Sunday school lesson, where everything is always tidy and spiritualized. And they prayed to God and He answered and everything was all better and they knew they would trust God the next time.

Life isn’t tidy. Life is messy and hard and full of mistakes. In my life, the main character usually forgets to trust God the next time. Forgive me if I appear to be suggesting otherwise.

But the moment of realizing that God can make good out of the bad situation I’m in right now—that moment is startling and bright, standing crystal clear in contrast to my mistake-laden life. Our epilepsy story has been crammed full of moments like these. You’d think I wouldn’t forget them, but I do.

God can be found in everything that happens to me, good or bad. God is the scarlet thread woven into my life, the blood of redemption that washes the bitterness out of the bad.

As for Tarica, she is fine. Her fever disappeared on its own. She didn’t throw up again and she didn’t seize.

God answered our prayers, didn’t He?

Phase One of Brain Surgery: Day 3

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Read the previous evening’s adventures here.

* * *

Saturday, February 7

I woke too early, feeling like I hadn’t slept.

While I had uninterrupted quiet to think and pray, I read my Bible and did some writing. No one disturbed us that morning, so Tarica didn’t stir until 9:00. When she awoke, we ordered breakfast, and then I got her up and dressed.

I’m not sure when I first noticed her fidgetiness. She was decidedly not the girl of the previous evening. She wiggled and squirmed, a body in constant motion, and her attention span was—well, she had little to none. Her orneriness had returned, too.

But why, if she wasn’t on medication?—and then I remembered the Ativan. Two doses within two hours. I remembered also her behavior in the hospital eleven months ago. We had blamed Dilantin—and certainly Dilantin had caused the hallucinating and fighting—but it looked like Ativan might have contributed to her agitation and inability to relax.

Tarica made a nice-sized dent in her breakfast and was still nibbling at it when our visitors arrived.

My sister Cassondra and three of her friends drove out to spend a few hours with us. Never was I so happy to see a crowd. (Yes, for introverts like me, four is a crowd.) They helped to entertain Tarica and gave me adults without badges to talk to.

I can see the photo in my mind: four smiling young women gathered around a small girl. It’s the photo I didn’t think to take and wish I could share with you now.

And if you will allow me to insert a mini-sermon here: Never hesitate to give what you can. The Lord can multiply it in the heart of the receiver until it fills every crevice with gratitude.

I deluged our visitors’ ears with more information than they likely wanted or needed; they listened politely and even asked a few questions. It felt delightful to unload all that was rabbiting around in my brain from the last two days.

Like this: In the last month, Tarica had complained about her eyes. Her vision would blur, and she couldn’t see for a while. When I had mentioned this to the PA, she said it was likely seizure activity, a simple partial seizure that didn’t spread to affect more of her brain. Her seizures have always affected her vision. In fact, Tarica told us once it’s how she knows she’s going to have a seizure: She stops seeing.

As I was speaking, Tarica said, “My eyes are blurry now, Mom.”

I looked at the event button. Should I push it? But what if it wasn’t a seizure?

Feeling self-conscious, I stepped outside the room in search of a nurse. None was in sight. Sheepishly, I pressed the call button.

When the nurse came in, I explained what had happened. She said to push the event button for any future episodes. As if I expected any other answer. Why had I bothered asking?

While our guests were with us, we received two more visitors that made Tarica’s eyes shine. Her anticipated canine friends were no sooner in the room than they were crowding Cassondra, who drew her skirt about her, rejecting their attention.

“I don’t know why it is,” she said, “that I can be in a group of dog-lovers, and the dogs always find me.”

The Labrador Retrievers, one yellow, one black, cheerfully unsuppressed, soon moved on, and once Tarica recovered from her initial shyness, she petted them.

DSCN1534 DSCN1535

After our visitors—human and canine—left, the hours dragged. Nothing was planned for Saturday or Sunday, beyond waiting for a few hoped-for seizures. We opened another gift, played a few games, read a few books.

DSCN1538

In his daily round, the doctor said, “Her seizures travel so fast within her brain, it will be difficult to determine the starting point. Ideally, it would be nice to see three to five more seizures, but we may have to settle for what we have. General anesthesia tends to suppress seizure activity, which is why we use it only if absolutely necessary. We are fortunate to have gotten the seizures we did.”

“What about the seizure cluster down on floor two?” I asked. “Will you be able to use that?”

“Maybe, maybe not. The battery-powered EEG is often not as clear as it should be.”

After he left, I thought about his words, piecing them with other information I had been collecting.

If general anesthesia generally suppresses seizures, then her four seizures last night were unusual.

I had decided, going into this hospital stay, that if anything out of the ordinary happened, I was going to attribute it to God. Why not see God in the unusual? Dare I call the unusual not a coincidence but a miracle? Of course I could, no matter what others might call it. God makes even the commonplace a miracle. Look at the unfolding of a crocus, the first squall of a newborn, the sinner’s prayer of repentance. Ordinary events, all of them, and extraordinary miracles, all in one.

If I couldn’t lay claim to miracles in Room EP4 at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, then I had no business praying to the God Who provided them.

And if I was looking for miracles, I didn’t have to search long. Seizing in Phase One is in itself worth celebrating. Several nurses told me that many patients who seize daily at home won’t have a single seizure during a two-week hospital stay. “The parents can’t believe it.”

I would claim that miracle, too, the miracle of seizures.

And not only seizures, but perfectly timed ones, as well.

Did you know it usually takes until the sixth or seventh day of Phase One to capture a seizure while hooked up to that machine for the SPECT scan? The patient has to seize on a weekday between the hours of seven and three, and seizures are not that easy to schedule.

Sometime over the weekend, the doctor told me, “We have the hardest test behind us. You’re on the downhill stretch now.”

I did not know, when Tarica had that seizure just before one o’clock on Friday afternoon, the second day of her stay, that a miracle was happening, but I knew it now—and my heart nearly burst with thanksgiving. I wished I could personally thank everyone who was praying for us. If only they could stand here and see the miracles happen.

I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at the moment. I had a front-row seat, and I was afraid to blink, for fear of missing something.

Tarica had no seizures that day, and it took her until after ten to fall asleep. With her constant fidgeting, I felt as if I had been on a trampoline all day, but though my senses were battered, my heart was quiet.

God was at work. I could rest in Him.

A Sneak Peek at the Ending

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I’ve been wrestling over what to post here.

Part of me, the storyteller part of me, wants to share the story as it happened, saving the best part for last, allowing the miracle to soak in rather than drenching you with it.

But many of you have faithfully prayed for us, and you deserve to know that your prayers have been more than answered.

As I write this, I’m sitting at my dining room table, watching the birds crowding the feeder. Upstairs, a little girl sleeps in her own bed.

We are home.

Our ten days shrank to six, because Tarica’s seizures happened at the right time and the doctors were able to collect enough information to release her. Tarica’s doctor called it “very uncommon.”

We serve a God of the uncommon and miraculous, and my heart is saturated with gratitude and praise.

Isn’t this amazing? Rejoice with me, with us. God has been so good.

I’ll still tell you the story, because there are many moments of grace in the details and I want to share them with you.

One shadow spreads itself over my joy. We have been given a miracle, but many still wait for theirs. I’m thinking especially of Juliann, a reader who left a comment last week about her twin baby boys in the NICU. I don’t know Juliann personally, but a few of my friends are friends of hers. Juliann is still waiting for a miracle. One of her sons is not doing well, and they are waiting now for some test results.

Will you pray for Juliann’s babies?

Our God has yet to run out of miracles.

Throwing Like a Girl

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At this time tomorrow, Tarica and I will be setting up house inside the walls of Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

I feel as taut as a piano wire.

Last night, I read and reread that familiar verse, trying to saturate myself in its truth: “Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you.” (1 Peter 5:7)

Throw all your anxiety on the Lord, Stephanie.

I’m trying, I’m trying, but it keeps falling short of its goal.

Stress has always robbed me of my sleep and my appetite. But I actually slept last night—except for a brief, wakeful watch in the hour of three—and that is a minor miracle. Now I just have to get through breakfast, lunch, and supper.

Tarica is looking forward to her hospital stay, but I suspect that has something to do with the air of Christmas around here. Such a sneaking around with mysterious parcels and boxes she isn’t allowed to open and packages arriving in the mail. It’s enough to drive any little girl into spasms of curiosity.

But she doesn’t have enough spasms otherwise.

My husband is an appliance repairman. He has lost count of the times he has gone out to a customer with a clunking washer or leaking dishwasher that runs beautifully while he, the repairman, is there. And haven’t you done this, too? You finally set up that doctor appointment, but the symptoms eased or disappeared shortly before you got there.

Despite having her medication cut in half, Tarica isn’t seizing enough, and tomorrow she is to be hospitalized to study her seizures.

It’s embarrassing to admit how much this worries me. What if she doesn’t seize enough for the doctors to locate the seizure focus?

A month ago, I would have been wild with joy to be in these shoes. Now, I am just sick with worry. A lot of time and inconvenience and prayer has been invested in these ten days at Children’s. A lot of money will be, too.

And what if she doesn’t seize?

(Okay, maybe a miracle did happen, maybe the seizures are gone, her epilepsy healed—I’m not discounting this as a possibility. But the not knowing eats at me.)

I’m trying to throw my worries on the Lord, but I have a terrible arm. I crave your help.

Pray for us.

Pray that Tarica would seize enough to give the doctors the needed information. Pray that her mind and spirit would be calm even if her brain isn’t.

Pray for Linford and me, that we would be strong and that our faith would not waver. Pray that I will be able to eat and sleep.

Pray for safe travels as Linford drives back and forth between his divided family.

Pray for the doctors, that they would have wisdom and discernment.

Pray a blessing on those sacrificing to help us.

Pray as the Lord leads you.

Pray His will be done.

Pray.

Family Photo Closeup

Several postscripts:

The photo above was taken this past weekend by a talented friend, bless her heart. She did a fabulous job with limited resources and time. (Jenica is seven; Tarica is five; Micah is twenty months. Dad and Mom are not as young as they used to be.)

I don’t know if I’ll be able to post updates while at the hospital. It all depends on… everything. Sometimes it’s difficult to write of an event while in the middle of it. Also, if Tarica goes ballistic, I’ll need to concentrate on her.

And thank you for praying. It’s not from lack of prayers that I feel anxious; it is my own weakness.

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. (Joshua 1:9)

Of Woozles and Wipers

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This one is just for sheer, rollicking fun. No drama this time, no hard questions.

Three years ago this month, Linford made a quick trip to Honduras, part of his responsibilities as a member of our church’s mission board. This is an account of one experience we had without him, back when life was a little simpler.

No, there’s nothing particularly earth-shattering here. I just like to write stories.

* * *

Oh, no. I need a man. I turned the windshield wiper blade over in my hand. Was it broken? I squinted in the inadequate light from the porch.

“Mom?” A head poked out the garage door. “You said you were coming right back.”

“Sorry, Jenica, I’m trying to fix the windshield wiper.”

“What happened?” She walked to the edge of the porch, followed by her sister. “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

“Shut the door behind you, sweetie,” I said automatically. Are these just scratches in the metal, or is the bracket broken?

The door slammed. Snow crunched beneath boots. “What happened?” My daughter’s worried face peered up at me.

I tried for a reassuring smile. “When I turned on the windshield wipers to clear off the snow, the wiper blade popped off.”

“Why?” Typical question from her.

“It must have been frozen to the windshield,” I said as I walked around the van to examine the other wiper. Is there a clasp, or does the blade slide onto the bracket? It was too dark to tell. I returned to the wiper arm standing at bladeless attention and attempted to slide the blade on.

“Can we still go to Grandma’s?” Jenica asked.

The wiper wouldn’t slide on. Does the bracket come off the wiper arm? I could reach it better if it did. “Not if I can’t get this blade back on. It’s snowing too hard to drive without windshield wipers.” A swift glance at her revealed her puckered concern. “I think I can get it, but I have to figure out how to fasten it on.”

I wiggled the bracket; it didn’t come off. I looked for a clasp; it didn’t have one. Biting back words of frustration, I settled back on my heels and swiped away the snow that had melted on my upturned face. Truth was, I needed a man, especially one informed in the mysteries of wiper blades, but my mechanically minded man was in hot and sunny Honduras. A fine time to snow, this was.

Blade in hand, I walked to the porch. “I’m going in to call Grandma and tell her we’ll be a little late.” I also needed to examine the blade under better light.

In the house, I studied the blade for clues on how to repair it. I learned nothing useful. Lord, I’m on my own here, except for You. I could use a little help.  

When I walked back outside a few minutes later, Jenica was running laps in the snow. Her sister had ventured a few tentative steps from the porch, studying terrain made unfamiliar by an inch of white fluff.

At the van, I tried another angle, another approach to refastening the blade. My hands ached against the cold metal. From the other side of the van, Jenica announced, “Mommy, I found wizzle tracks!”

“Wizzle tracks?” I paused, frowning. “Do you mean woozle tracks, like Pooh and Piglet found?”

Pink with pleasure and cold, she ran to my side. “Like Pooh and Piglet. Wizzle, I mean, woozle tracks. Going around the van.”

“How many woozles do you think there are?” I gave up on sliding the blade onto the bracket and tried to snap them together.

“Just one, I think. Let me check.” Jenica disappeared behind the van again. I grinned. Would she remember what happened next?

In the quiet that followed, Tarica inched to my side. “Mommy, bye-bye?”

“Yes, sweetie, we’ll go bye-bye once the windshield wiper is fixed.”

She poked at the snow collecting on the front bumper. “Cold, Mommy.”

“Sure is,” I said and blew on my hands.

“Mom!” A cry of triumph from the other side of the van. “There are two woozles! I see their tracks.”

“Are they big tracks?” I asked.

Jenica emerged into the light, studying the snow. “No, they’re pretty little.”

“What will you do if you catch the woozles?”

She jerked to a stop. With a quick glance at the shadowy trees, she moved closer to me. “Mom,” she stated with lofty condescension, “I’m just pretending.”

“Oh, I see. Well then, you can just pretend to catch them.” I wrestled with the blade as I spoke.

“That’s what I’m doing.” Again that condescension as if I were the four-year-old. She looked down at the snow around my feet. “Hey, Mom, here’s big woozle tracks.”

I barely heard her. The blade was almost, almost—squeeze harder!—there! I stepped back and rubbed my hands together, cold and satisfied. “Let’s go, girls. I got it fixed. Grandma and Grandpa are waiting.”

They clambered in, woozles abandoned to the snowy darkness.

At the end of the drive, I paused, foot on the brake, to study the unplowed roads. Am I crazy to venture out on such a night? On the other hand, I will go crazy if I stay home by myself with two bored girls another evening.

“Girls,” I said into their chatter, “we need to pray.” They subsided and bowed their heads.

“Lord, thank You for helping me refasten the wiper blade. Take care of Daddy and bring him home again to us. Keep us safe on the roads tonight. May Your will be done. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

As I eased out on the trackless white, I said aloud, “I miss Daddy.” Two little echoes piped up behind me.

I flicked on the high beams, but they blasted the falling snow into a swirl of blindness. I switched the lights back down, turned the wipers on—thank You, God!—and drove into the night while my precious cargo argued over who missed Daddy the most.

If the road had not required all my attention, I could have told them who did.

And Keep Us Safe Till Morning’s Light

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For the first part of this story, go to Be Careful What You Pray For.

* * *

I hovered over Tarica as she continued to seize, despising my inability to help her. She was stiff and motionless, but for her grimacing mouth. Her eyes were wide and fixed and unfocused.

Any second she would stop, any second now, but seconds turned into minutes.

I don’t know how long the whole seizure lasted. At least twenty minutes. It felt like an eternity before her body relaxed and she moved her head, eyes and mouth finally closing.

When I cleaned up her face, she was as limp and unresponsive as a rag doll. To reassure myself, I took her hand and said, “Squeeze my hand, Tari.”

She squeezed. So did my heart, a giant throb of relief.

She was back.

Thank You, God.

I called my mom with the details, wanting her prayers, and while I was on the phone, Tarica began to cry. She clutched at me, and I sat down beside her and lifted her onto my lap. Which is why I felt the first heave. I stood up in time for her to throw up on the floor instead of both of us.

She sagged against me when it was over. I lowered her to the floor beside the sofa since her socks were wet. She slid sideways into a heap and fell asleep.

It was then that I finally realized why her seizure had been so awful: She was sick. Her medication had run right through her during her many trips to the bathroom.

Tarica had not been sick for ten months, other than brief colds. This was unusual for her. If anyone in our family was going to be sick, it had been her. Until last March. You can’t tell me God wasn’t involved with this change.

And if God was involved with the absence of illness, then He was involved in its return. The timing was inescapable. I had asked Him for confirmation, and this was my answer.

This is what we risked, every time she got sick. Epilepsy turns normal childhood illnesses into brain-threatening conditions, especially for a child without good seizure control.

I had yet a huge hurtle to cross, and I needed help to get over it. I let a message for the on-call neurologist at Children’s. When she called me back, I told her what had happened, faltering in the telling of my fumbling efforts with the rescue medication. When I stopped mid-sentence, she laughed and said, “Go ahead. I’ve heard it all.”

That may be, but it wasn’t me telling the story. Hurriedly, I confessed all, and then said, “I have to give her her evening dose soon. What if she throws it up?”

The doctor laid it all out. If Tarica threw up her medication within an hour of taking it, I could safely give her a second dose. If she threw the second dose up, she had to be taken to the ER, where she could be given the medication by IV.

Also, if she had another seizure that lasted longer than two minutes, she had to get to the ER as soon as possible. The longer the seizure, the less likely it would stop on its own, and if two such seizures occurred in a short time, the more likely they would cause brain damage.

When I thought about the night ahead, I felt like I had to throw up.

Tarica slept on the sofa while I collected prayers through phone calls and texts. During this time, Linford and I studied the rescue drug components that had baffled me. He managed to get a syringe full, and I, with steadier hands and clearer head, figured out how to put it together properly. Next time—would there be a next time?—I would be ready. I would know what to do. Never, never again would I take that risk.

When she awoke, I took her to the kitchen and knelt beside her. “Tarica, I need to give you your medication, but I think we should pray before you take it.”

She looked at me uncomprehendingly, eyes heavy with post-seizure exhaustion. When I bowed my head, she leaned into me.

“God, Tarica needs to take her medication, but her tummy is all mixed up. Help the medication to stay in her tummy so she doesn’t have more big seizures. Help us both to sleep tonight and keep us safe. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

I gave her the medication, got her ready for bed, and tucked her in.

We couldn’t leave her alone, so Linford stayed with her while I prepared for bed. When he left and I climbed in beside her, I was as fearful as a child.

She tossed and turned and finally slept, but it was a restless sleep that kept me awake. That is, it would have, if my fear hadn’t been doing a good job of that already. She kept making a strange gulping sound with her mouth that sounded like…well, you know.

But the medication stayed down. When an hour had passed, I relaxed slightly. Not that I slept. Shortly before 1:30, when her breathing quickened and her body arched, I was up in a flash, hovering over her, counting seconds as she seized.

“One and two and three and…twenty-four and twenty-five and Dear God make it stop and twenty-eight and twenty-nine….” I had reached the upper thirties and a new level of fear when the seizure weakened. And then it was over and she slept, deeper and quieter than before, and I slept, too, lightly but somewhat reassured.

And that’s the end.

Tarica was fine the next day, her illness behind her. I didn’t recover so quickly, but I was grateful for God’s care. We were at home and she was fine. Nothing else was as vital as that.

* * *

So many prayers, so many answers—but I was growing weary of trying to sort through them. Once more, a story from my own life pulled aside the trappings I try to hide behind.

In this story, I see the truth of my search for God’s will, and it is this: I try so hard to make the right choices because I struggle to trust that God will work out the details on His own.

It’s as if I believe I need to do most of the work.

Yes, I should desire to follow God’s will, but I should stop trying to nail God down and simply trust Him to make my path straight.

As if there’s anything simple about trust.

Be Careful What You Pray For

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Did you ever pray for something and then, after receiving what you asked for, wish you hadn’t?

Here’s the story of my prayer and my regret.

The week of Christmas, Tarica had only a few seizures, and in the two weeks following, she did equally well. I rejoiced.

But I also worried.

Next month, she will be admitted to Children’s Hospital for testing to discover if she qualifies for brain surgery. We had chosen to do this because the drugs were not controlling her seizures. But what if we were moving too fast? What if she could eventually gain seizure control through medication? Was her decrease in seizures a sign of growing control, or was it simply the unexplainable ebb and flow we had seen before?

Last week, this weighed on me, and so I prayed about it. Lord, show us if we are doing the right thing for Tari. I’m not exactly asking for a sign, but give us a little direction, please.

No thunder rolled. No Voice spoke. Life went on, and I went on praying daily: Reassure us we are doing the right thing; stop us if we aren’t.

I knew with this prayer I risked an increase in seizures, for that would be the surest confirmation, but we had seen many seizures. What were a few more?

And then I worried that I was, in essence, praying for my daughter to seize. But maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe nothing would happen, and we could reevaluate our decision. But maybe she would seize more frequently, and I would tell myself, I prayed for this. I shuddered at the thought.

The circles I took last week—it was dreadful. At least—I tell myself now—I was pacing those circles around the will of God.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday came and went. No seizures. Friday, Tarica complained her belly hurt.

Soon after, she trotted urgently to the bathroom. A short time later, she yelled, “Mom!”

When I opened the door, she said, “I have diarrhea.”

And she did. Numerous times that day. It was bad.

Other than frequent bathroom breaks and some tears over her achy belly, she was fine. She worked at her preschool book for some time that afternoon. At supper, she consumed a whole hamburger, methodically. I remember looking at her across the table, and she grinned at me as she chewed.

After supper, I was cleaning up the kitchen while the children romped with a big appliance box. They shrieked and giggled and hollered. All the toys they have in the playroom, and they have the most fun with a cardboard box.

The fun subsided to a dull roar, and then I heard a thump. I waited for a wail, and when none came, I froze. A thump followed by silence could mean only one thing. Seconds later, Jenica hollered, “Mom, Tari’s having a seizure!”

She was on the floor by the sofa, Linford beside her. She was seizing…and she seized and seized.

My mouth went dry. “This is too long. Shall I get the emergency drug?”

“Get it ready,” Linford said. “Maybe we won’t need it.”

I don’t want to tell you the rest. I failed my daughter. I got the bag of drug paraphernalia with shaking hands, and I opened packages—a sterile syringe, a vial, a needle, and other components that suddenly looked as comprehensible as engine parts and pieces to me. Ten months ago, I had been told how to fill the syringe and give it to her as a nasal spray, and now, under pressure, I couldn’t remember the instructions.

A clock ticked in my head. God, please help me do this! Still she seized, body convulsing, eyes staring, mouth drooling.

Five minutes passed. She should have the drug by now, but I was still trying assemble the engine. Six. I tried to give it to her. Nothing happened when I depressed the plunger. Seven. Dear God, please.

“It’s not working,” I said. Wailed. Moaned. “I can’t remember how to do it.” If she were permanently damaged from this, it would be my fault.

Linford said, “Jenica, go get a paper towel.” He put it under her cheek to mop up the drool. When he looked at the pieces that were supposed to rescue our daughter, they were not any clearer to him.

And still she seized. Eight minutes. Nine. Ten? Eleven? I wasn’t watching the clock.

I tried again. Maybe she got a little this time. I tried again and again. But I couldn’t get the syringe to fill properly, and so it wasn’t enough. I prayed incoherently.

Finally, the convulsions stopped. We wiped her face, moved her to the sofa. I knelt beside her and studied her eyes.

“I think she’s still seizing,” I said. “Her eyes aren’t focused. Her body is stiff. And she’s still drooling.” The sofa was growing wet beneath the steady flow from her working mouth. I shone a flashlight into her eyes; her pupils were huge pools of black, and she didn’t even flinch.

“Tarica, squeeze my hand,” I said. No response. Linford smoothed the hair back from her face. She moved nothing but her mouth.

I tried the rescue medication again. No change. She was at the mercy of the haywire electricity in her brain.

Not only had I prayed for this, but I had failed to administer the drug effectively. Oh God oh God oh Father God.

When you serve the Almighty, you should be careful what you pray for.

* * *

I must stop the story for a moment and speak to those who might find themselves in our shoes. Do not do this at home. If your child’s seizure won’t stop, call an ambulance. We live thirty minutes from the hospital, the roads were snowy, and we thought we had a drug that would stop it. It didn’t work out like it should have, but let this mistake be ours alone and not yours.

* * *

I hate to leave you hanging, but this post is long enough. I will be back in a day or two with the rest of the story.