I don’t know about you, but have you found in your life that sometimes the greatest growth in your walk with Christ comes in your darkest times? Don’t get me wrong, mountaintop experiences are great - and they can have a lasting impact on our walk. But it seems to me, as I reflect back, that those dark times have tempered my faith in a different way.My wife Katy and I became parents September 2, 2008. Just a day or two after Hurricane Gustav passed through, our daughter Avery entered the world. She was a few weeks early, and spent half a month in the hospital as an early baby. While that was a trying time, Avery bounced back pretty well. But two months later - just before her first round of vaccinations - Avery contracted Pertussis (more commonly known as the Whooping Cough). When they diagnosed her I thought, “Well thank God for antibiotics - at least they can kill off Pertussis. I should go check this out on WebMD.” Big mistake. It read something like “Whooping cough is seldom fatal in children, except in cases under 1 year old.” As soon as I read that my blood stopped flowing. The complications that were likely to develop with a two-month-old and pertussis were - to put it mildly - scary. My prayer was that she could avoid those dreaded complications.
Not long after admission to the hospital Avery’s feedings began to diminish. She gradually began getting her nourishment more from IV fluids. About three days into our hospital stay, her prospects were bleak. Breathing treatments were helping, and her lungs were clear - dodging the pneumonia bullet, but she wasn’t eating well at all. We asked the respiratory therapist if Avery was the sickest kid on the pediatrics floor. She said, “Unfortunately she is.”
That was probably the low point for me. But in that dark place - our greatest hope and refuge was Christ. He sustained us in so many ways, big and little: from a quick email (from so many) to say “we’re praying for you” to Andy Hurst stopping by just to give Katy a hug, we experienced so much love from the body of Christ. Katy read The Shack, and then encouraged me to read it too. That book was exactly what we needed to read, at exactly the right time. We were, like the man in the “footprints” poem, being carried by Christ through that dark night of the soul.
Through it all God brought me to a place of dependence on Him. My prayer life got deeper and wider - “being in a constant state of prayer” was nearly effortless. And little things that would have bothered me, I saw from a different perspective. Being in that place is certainly not permanent, but I realized that God is always carrying me.
Thank God Avery avoided the most treacherous waters and after 4 or 5 days she turned a corner and began to improve. After spending 12 days at St. Francis, we got to return home with our sweet daughter, and thankfully she’s been doing great since then.
God sustains us in dark times. God’s presence is expressed in different ways, and often we don’t feel it, but we’re being held up, loved, prayed for, and grown. So where are you on your journey? How is God changing you? Is there someone for whom you need to be the hands and feet of Christ?
Luke Madden
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