Through prayers for my niece, everything becomes clear as we are given Grace and redeemed.
Today at Westmead Children’s Hospital, the doctors told my sister that she would have to think about taking her very fragile and sick baby, home soon as they needed her bed for other children.
How wonderful!
In a few, very short weeks, which really means, in a few very short days (that felt interminable at the time), our wonderful, wonderful God, has managed to take this child from an unstable and critical condition on life support, to a stable condition in recovery.
Now, please do not think that I am so ignorant that I do not know that doctors and nurses operated on and cared for my niece during this time, or that modern medicine and technology did not work to make this happen. But, I also see a truth here that may have alluded me if this was not my own very dear niece and goddaughter. God has worked this miracle through their frail hands, their frail hearts and their frail minds. God has worked this miracle in our frail hands, our frail hearts and our frail minds.
Each time we chose to pray in thought or word or deed. Each time we chose to offer something for the salvation of souls. Each time we worked to snatch a soul from Hell and begged God to take it into Heaven, while we prayed for my niece – God worked his wonders.
For God this must be like building a heart using a rusty nail and a broken screwdriver.
Humans are just so limited! Thank God – God is not!
I was thinking today about Christ on the Cross. He used his time so well. Shame on me for the time I waste. In just those few hours with His Cross, and while He was dying in an agony of pain, Christ only thought of others.
He thought of us, when he spoke to the women of Jerusalem, telling them to weep for themselves and their children but not for Him. He thought of His most beloved and blessed mother, when He gave her into the care of His beloved John. He thought of the Bad Thief, when He allowed him to vent his anger and despair and pain without complaint. He thought of the Good Thief, when He redeemed him and offered him eternal salvation. He thought of the Roman Centurion, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and all of those who converted after standing at the Foot of the Cross. He thought of all of us, but not Himself.
And now as Christ himself suffered with this innocent child, my niece, and her mother – because Christ does suffer with us as we suffer – of this I am sure. Now, through my niece, who most resembles Christ through her purity and holiness in this present time for she is without sin, Christ, God, is still thinking of us and not himself.
He is thinking of us when He is sending us Grace. He is thinking of us when He is giving us hope. He is thinking of us when He is strengthening our faith. And all of this, so that we can understand the blessed miracle we have received through this most precious child.
When God chose my niece as His own special child and when my sister allowed God to work His wonders, by submitting to His will and giving her child a chance at life – God used my niece for His purpose. For His will.
And what a beautiful purpose my niece has had in her few short weeks of life so far. Through my niece, God has healed hearts. Not just hers, but my heart, and possibly yours too.
With my niece, we stand on Holy Ground. Here. At the foot of the Cross.