Good Friday Thoughts in the Hospital

I am currently sitting on the bench at the back of my son’s hospital room. Three days ago he had open heart surgery to correct a his atrial ventricular heart defect. He has just had his breathing tube removed and he is doing great. During that procedure however, I was not. I stood frozen in the door way, hands covering my eyes even though I was peeking through. I was unable to help my crying little baby while 4 nurses and a doctor huddled around him to ensure he was doing fine as they took him off the device that was making sure he kept breathing. The doctor turned around once he was satisfied, saw me and said “Oh my goodness mom, don’t worry, he is doing great. Crying means he is breathing.” I tried my best to keep my face positive, but it was taking everything in me to not want to push everyone away so I could scoop up my little guy and comfort him. I waited patiently until they told me I could come in to soothe him; I gave him his pacifier, let his little hand grip my finger, stroked his cheek (the little space not covered by his new oxygen mask) and spoke my love all over him.

The weight of the difference of how my heart was feeling compared to the day when I found out Ben would have down syndrome crashed over me. The love a mother feels for her baby is the truest form of unconditional love I think exists in the world. That is what I wish I could go back and jam into my brain 10 months ago. I wish I could make it where nothing else mattered to me than other than the pure well being of my child. I was devastated over something that has now been replaced with a bursting love that can’t be contained. A love that makes me cower in the corner terrified of the object of my affection experiencing any type of pain. A love that makes me want to tackle someone to the ground so they stop inflicting pain on my baby.

I was so afraid of what this life of special needs would look like, and there is still so much that is a big, fat unknown, but what I know now, that I didn’t know then, is a love that would wash over it all.

That, my friends, is EXACTLY how Christ loves us. In fact, his unconditional love goes even a step further. While my fears and doubts have been all speculation over Ben’s life, Christ knows my shortcomings and ugliness in my heart, He knows every misstep and failure and He took the blame. Just as I want to throw myself into Ben’s place and take all of his pain, Christ has already done that for me. He paid my penalty for sin, through death on the cross. He has washed me and made me new.

Good Friday is right around the corner and this is what we remember. I had always heard that having a child teaches you more about Christ’s love than anything else, and that is oh so true. He is good to be there to reassure me where I fall and reminding me of His promise. That in three days He rose again proving He conquered death and promising to do the same for me. There is nothing that I could do or nothing that would happen to me that would make His love and promise fade. I can just imagine Christ is standing there heart aching when I am in pain through anything and everything that pulls me away from Him, and I can reach out to grab His hand and let the love of Lord wash over me.

Christ saw me in the midst of my sin, in the depths of my pain, in the middle of my weakness and said, “I want her, exactly her.” That is what Ben has taught me. In the middle of his pain, in the middle of his weakness, and all of his body - extra chromosome and heart defect - I am saying “I want him, exactly him,” and there is nothing that would change that. I used to be annoyed by things I would read by other mom’s of children with down syndrome when they would say something to this effect, because I felt like it couldn’t be true. How can you not wish that your child’s DNA was “correct”. But today, in this moment of feeling in my heart was completely on that little hospital bed I understand. I love Ben completely and wholly and unconditionally, not in spite of his diagnoses and needs, but because he is Ben.

And Christ knew us completely and wholly and unconditionally gave himself up for us. Remember these truths this week as we remember the Christ’s sacrifice as the truest and purest form of love.

But God showed his love for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8