Claire and her mom

I have been following a blog, http://ourclaire.wordpress.com/, since its inception this past June.  I am not sure how I stumbled upon it, but it has become very personal to me.  It is about the life of an ordinary family set afloat the path of excruciating circumstances—the near drowning of their three-year-old daughter. Each day I receive an update on Claire’s progress toward a new ‘normal’, one of which no one but God himself knows the definition.  Each day I am driven to my knees and not only pray for this family but express my gratitude and thankfulness that I have not experienced such pain as a mother.

I don’t share this to bring sadness to you, my reader, but to cause you to stop and appreciate just how precious is life itself at this very moment. In the next moment your phone may ring, bringing news that will change your life as you now know it. Tomorrow could bring sorrow. In it all and through it all, God is and will always be sovereign, faithful, and just. We may cry out why, but his peace can and will calm the shaken, the fallen, and the hurting.  

I wanted to share a tidbit from today’s post about Claire, written by her daddy, with an excerpt from the beginning post to give you insight what they were facing from the start:

June 2^nd entry-

…after a near drowning event on Sunday, May 30^th…here’s what we do know about that first hour:

• Claire didn’t have a pulse for 30 minutes;
• When the practitioners did get her heart going again, she could not breathe on her own; and
• Claire’s little body was fighting to stay alive.

August 30^th entry-

…as I write this, the clock stares at me, shocking me with its pronouncement of another day gone by. On the one hand, I want time to slow down so I can catch my breath, and on the other I want it to speed up, hastening Claire’s recovery.

I reflect on the first few days when it happened, hoping that as we brought Claire out of hypothermia, we’d take great strides to recovery. We were cautioned that the recovery would take a long time, but we still didn’t grasp the gravity of the situation: little did we know that weeks, months and years of shuffling forward were ahead of us. The slow pace is what is difficult, each day another day without seeing Claire smile, hearing her voice or watching her play. We’ve survived for three months without those things, but we can’t imagine living without them for another day. But we do it anyway, because we hold on to the hope that day will come soon.

On some days we see something new. Tiffany had the idea of buying some Baby Orajel as part of oral therapy. Her idea was that when you feel numbness in your mouth, your tongue tends to explore that side of your mouth. Claire’s tongue exercises have been limited. So we tried the Orajel. It worked right away. We watched Claire move her tongue to the right side of her mouth, feeling where we had placed the drop. We all cheered watching her little tongue move. Her curiosity turned to annoyance when the feeling didn’t go away. She didn’t like it. It was a victory nonetheless.

What spoke to me today was Claire’s ‘therapy’ with the Orajel. While the family watched and waited, eventually they saw Claire move her tongue to one side her mouth and was victory!  How often do we move our tongues around inside our mouth throughout our days only to take it for granted? Brush our teeth, comb our hair, walk to the kitchen, stand up from sitting in a chair? All movements we do each day and never even consider the fact that tomorrow those gifts and evidences of life could be taken away.

Could we, like others we may know, stand and sing, “Blessed be the name of the Lord – He gives and takes away, but my heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed by your name?

I remember going to a Steven Curtis Chapman concert after his little girl Maria had been tragically killed and through tears, he sang that very song, with new insight.

God gives and He takes away. Sometimes He takes away completely and sometimes only partially—like Claire, like a disease or illness, or a child who has turned his/her back on the Lord, or unemployment. The list is endless, but God’s comfort and strength never fails and victory is coming. It may not feel like it today, it may not feel like it tomorrow, but it is coming.  Until that day, I want to be thankful for what this moment brings and if the next, should God choose to take something away, it is because of His mercy and grace, faithfulness and sovereignty that I can choose to say, blessed be His name.