Part 1 - The Darkest Day

So today is an anniversary day for me. Today is the 1 year anniversary of the darkest, and most terrifying day of my life. May 17th, 2010, I learned that there was a strong likelihood my daughter had Cystic Fibrosis.

My daughter, Emmanuella – we call her Ella for short, was born three weeks earlier, and was a happy healthy baby. She seemed to struggle a bit with gaining weight at first, but other than that, she seemed to be thriving in every other way. So that Monday morning, when I received a phone call from my family doctor, informing me that the newborn screening, that the province provides on all newborns, had shown something they needed to do further testing about, I was shocked. When I heard her mention the words Cystic Fibrosis, it just about knocked the breath out of me.

Two things came to mind. I remembered a Law & Order episode where the police were breaking into a home and saw a woman “beating” on her kid. They thought she was abusing her child, but she was doing physiotherapy on her child’s chest, because he had Cystic Fibrosis. The second thought was about some really sad commercials on TV that had starred Celine Dion and her niece, who had Cystic Fibrosis.

I quickly called my husband, asked him to come home from work. I needed him to be with us. He quickly informed his co-workers of the situation and on his way out, one who had a child with special needs said to him, “Just remember, God has the last word!” It’s become such a powerful phrase to our family.

That day was really, really dark. My husband and I hung on to God, our daughter, our faith, our family, our church family in a way that I never knew existed. We knew we would get our answers through medical testing the next day, but waiting for one day was excruciating. That said, we weren’t in a hurry to hear confirmation of our greatest fears. The way our family was supported over the next two days was incredible. We quickly called our church family, and we had people coming and praying with us. We had family that was by our side and gave us the freedom to just react to this news the way we needed to. And that day, there came a real change in my relationship with God.

Up until this point, I had lived bracing myself for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. I had regularly felt robbed in many areas of my life. My childhood was far from being safe, healthy, or loving, on a regular basis. So many close relationships, including my first marriage, had completely crumbled. When I was in a moment of happiness, it often was accompanied by the thought, “when’s this coming to a crashing end?”

So while holding my daughter, I talked to God. I prayed with everything in me, that she would not have Cystic Fibrosis. That she would be healthy and whole, and live a blessed life. It was like a switch turned inside my mind and heart. We all have been given a gift from God. Life. It is so precious, and so fragile. We daily have a choice. We can see it as a gift, and live fearlessly, or we can see it as a right, and live in fear of losing it. I needed to choose. Regardless of how we choose, life is a fatal condition. I have a firm belief in God, in my heavenly home, and that with death, I get the chance to really live and experience heaven. I am truly excited about heaven, and I am not afraid of it. It’s been this living each day on earth part that has sometimes freaked me out. I had a choice. Would I allow fear to overwhelm me, and then become a fearful mother to my child? Then how could I speak truthfully to my daughter about being fearless in her life? and be any kind of an example of the woman of God that she would need to be in her day to day challenges? Would I accept this challenge and mission that God was entrusting me with, this precious bundle of joy, beauty and strength named Emmanuella – meaning God is with us – and in doing so, accept the new and beautiful thing God was going to do in my life? Mission accepted! And that was when I saw God’s light in my darkest day!

Isaiah 42:16 (NIV)
16 I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.

John 1:5 (NIV)
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

And the next day, I saw his fresh mercies, new every morning. I’ll share that tomorrow...