On November 2, 2012 at 2:39 pm, a tiny infant was born. He had been in the womb only 25 weeks and he weighed a mere 1.75 pounds. The doctor, rooted in his medical knowledge, offered no hope for this little babe. His parents placed their trust in the medical staff and decided NOT to try and save this little life. For 4 hours, they held their son as he gasped and struggled for every breath. He was offered no food, no milk, no help, no hope. The families of the parents were divided in two factions – those who also placed their trust in the medical community, and those who placed their trust in The Lord Jesus Christ.
Phone calls and text messages went out to prayer warriors to intercede for this baby and for his parents. Prayers for someone to intervene were offered as incense to heaven. It must have been a pleasant aroma to God for a nurse began to notice how strong this little guy was and kept coming into the room where his parents cuddled and stroked this little gift from God. This nurse, without consulting the parents, called the NICU to ask them to come look at this child. This nurse was in fear of reprisals from the parents, but acted anyway. The medical staff had never seen a preemie live so long without any assistance – maybe they were wrong about his age, they thought. They had estimated he would only live about 1.5 hours after birth with no assistance.
The parents are good people – not heartless people – but they had no hope in their lives beyond what the world had to offer. Still resolute in their decision not to give their baby much needed medical support – continuing to believe in only the doctors and not in God – willingly handed over their son to the NICU for a few tests. A doctor came in the room after the tests were run and told them what a fighter their son was and how strong he was for one so little. The parents, their hearts softened by heaven, now wavered in their decision that once seemed so right. They asked the doctor what he would do if he were his son. The doctor, filled with compassion for this little life, told them he would give his son every chance and do all he could to help him live. This precious baby was moved to the NICU – praise be to God who heard the cries of his saints on behalf of this helpless child! This past November, Gabriel turned two, happy and healthy, he continues to defy every medical prediction!
In our family, the adults always give new names to the children that have nothing to do with their birth name. This baby forever will be called by me and my husband, Gabriel – which means God is My Strength.
Without Jesus, we have nothing to hope for, nothing to believe in, except ourselves and those we give control to. Without an intimate knowledge of the Creator, we only have our tiny minds to believe with. Without faith in something bigger than what we can see, we are doomed to what we can accomplish with our own efforts.
To believe that this life is nothing more than what we see and then we die is similar to erecting fences around our life made up of what we can accomplish and what lives we can impact. And once inside that fence, it is not far reaching to ask, why bother to impact anyone else – for we live and then we die – and so do others. Without a hope in Jesus, humanity is doomed to become a self-centered moral-less group – not helping others or offering anything more than what is seen. Trust would only extend to that which and who we deem worthy to trust ourselves, mere men, makers of mistakes and depraved creatures, given over to the lusts of our hearts and thoughts of our minds. This would be our only hope.