We Were Not Alone in the NICU
Twenty-one years ago today, I was sitting in the NICU of the British Columbia Children’s Hospital, scared out of my wits.
Two days before, in the BC Women’s Hospital, my wife had had an emergency C-section. Our daughter was born purring like a kitten; they told us it was nothing, but when she was still noisy the next morning, a different doctor called in a specialist. The two hospitals shared a building, so (by God’s grace) the only specialist in the province qualified to diagnose and treat our baby’s problem was right there in the facility. They took her away, and I went with her, leaving my wife behind.
The specialist told me our daughter had a birth defect in her throat (called laryngomalacia) which sometimes required laser surgery, usually around the six-month mark. Earlier than that was risky, but rarely necessary.
My baby girl spent most of that night on oxygen; the next morning, the specialist decided he had to operate immediately. My daughter’s life hung in the balance, my wife was still recovering from surgery, and I felt brittle as a rose in liquid nitrogen. I knew I was on the verge of shattering. I didn’t—because the church showed up.
What it means to be the church
I was in Vancouver, BC studying at Regent College to be a pastor, but our church was in Bellingham, Washington, and I was a student chaplain at St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham, so our life was bisected by the US-Canada border with its attendant variable delays. It didn’t matter. People came from everywhere.
Our pastor showed up, sitting with us through the surgery. I don’t remember if he said much, or we did, or what it might have been, but I remember him being with us for hours. I remember when they told us the surgery had been a complete success—he held us tight as we cried and shook in relief.
Our little girl wasn’t out of the woods yet, though: she spent the first two weeks of her life in the NICU. When my wife was discharged, we moved into a little room at the entrance to the unit. It could have been grim and depressing, but it wasn’t, because we weren’t alone.
Our young couples’ group showed up. Once I walked into the room to see David and Jennifer sitting on the bed with a big Subway bag. Another time, three couples came up to visit us and then see a movie in Vancouver. They got lost and missed the movie, but still spent hours with us.
Others in the church showed up as well. A group of Regent faculty wives visited one day to let us talk, worship with us, and pray for us. My professors offered their support and encouragement. Meanwhile, the supervisor and students in my chaplaincy program and the chaplains at St. Joe’s prayed for us and told me not to worry about my responsibilities there until my daughter was well.
Transformative gratitude
It was the most terrifying experience of my life, but I feel only gratitude for it now. I thank God for the doctors and nurses who made a severely underfunded system work to give all those babies the care they needed; by his grace and their work, my daughter suffered no long-term consequences.
I thank God for his church. I will forever be grateful to all those of his people who lit our way. When we couldn’t walk, the church carried us. When we were too frightened to hold ourselves together, the people of God held on to us. When we were too drained and exhausted to hope, the body of Christ hoped for us. Some of them were friends, some of them I barely knew at all, but it didn’t matter—one and all, they gathered around us and loved us through the darkness.
I thank God for what he taught me about church and ministry. I was studying to become a pastor, but my sense of my calling was mostly head and very little heart. Twenty-one years ago, that all changed. I learned what it means for the church to be the church: God’s people were our life and light through the valley of the shadow of death, and I will never stop being thankful.
I thank God for giving me a reason to keep going. The church has given me a rough ride over the years, but I love her all the same. I have seen what she can be, and I have been given opportunities to add to the beauty—and I can think of nothing better. My heart burns to nurture that beauty so others will know what I have known.
Most of all, I thank God for my twenty-one-year-old daughter, healthy and vibrant and loving, whip-smart and wise beyond her years, who is now looking at seminaries as she follows her own calling to pastoral ministry. Despite the struggles and suffering I have had, she too has learned to love the church. The church has richly blessed her life, and her heart moves to return blessing for blessing. With her, the circle closes, and begins again.
Meet Rob Harrison
Rob Harrison has been a pastor for nineteen years and a writer for much longer. In both capacities, he understands his primary calling to be seeding the gospel of Jesus Christ into people’s lives to replace shame with grace, fear with hope, and bondage with freedom. Where our default mode is to live by law, and thus to read God’s word as law, he is passionate about teaching the church to read the Scriptures truly as grace and gift. Rob and his wife of 24 years live in Warsaw, IN with three of their four children, and talk to their eldest several times a week.
Where to find him . . .
Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.
If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.
Creating Ripples
If you would like to cultivate rhythms in addition to gratitude that will empower you live on mission in your neighborhood, check out Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase the book.
