From Mourning to Dancing

The helicopter blades hummed loudly in my ears, slicing through the headset. I stared blankly ahead. Local landmarks slid by underneath and we swerved to dodge a birthday balloon that rose up in front of us. I held my son’s stuffed lion Raja in my lap, took slow deep breaths to calm my racing heart and mind and prayed silently for the bleeding to stop.

It was a normal fall, a normal accident, a normal weekend. My wife and a couple of her girl friends had left for the beach about an hour's drive away. I was home with the three kids. What could go wrong? As our youngest son napped, his two older siblings ran back and forth between the kitchen and the living room of our little house like they do every single day. I was walking up the steps when I heard a loud smack and a cry. My two-year-old’s head had hit the kitchen floor. What followed was the most harrowing 24 hours of my life as a parent.

It was a terrifying, powerless feeling. My boy’s crying turned to droopy eyes and falling asleep in my arms and he would not wake as much as I prodded and pinched him. This became an ER visit, a CT scan revealing bleeding inside his skull pressuring his brain, neurosurgeons on stand-by and a helicopter flight to the children’s hospital for immediate surgery to drill and drain his head.

Do you believe there is a God? Is He involved? Can He do the miraculous in our lives?

I believe he can and does.

I sang House of God, by Jon Foreman, to my son; it’s Psalm 23 put to music. Then I put my palm on his forehead and I prayed out loud in the name of Jesus for the bleeding to stop. My mother told me there is nothing more sincere than the prayer of a parent crying out for their child. There were many people praying for him at that moment actually. Every few minutes I had to stop and take long deep breaths to slow my heart and my thinking. I needed to be strong for my son, to think clearly. But inside I was shaken and torn. Moments after the prayer the EMTs wheeled in and strapped my son to the bed and pushed him to the rooftop where the helicopter was waiting.

As our deep blue helicopter rose slowly into the gray sky I looked down and across the street from the hospital, a father in the parking lot of a restaurant was pointing to the helicopter with his excited little son.

When we touched down we were carted into a bright busy room like a TV set. It bustled with people in scrubs, masks, gloves, aprons and eye protection. They laid my little boy on the table held his limbs down, placed an oxygen mask over his face and began to cut away his favorite Lightning McQueen t-shirt and shorts. I stood at his side stroking his almost-blond hair trying desperately not to cry and telling him he was ok as I watched him whimper. He was prepped and ready for surgery and given one last CT scan to check the progress of the bleeding.

I'm sorry?

No surgery needed?!

The scan revealed the bleeding had stabilized. He was more alert already and even smiled at me. The Lord had heard our cries.

It’s wild! The next two days at the hospital was good news after good news as he improved and became more and more himself. My wife and I could feel nothing but thankfulness. Our worst nightmare had turned on its head and we were rejoicing. How? Why? The Lord had turned our mourning into dancing. He was gracious and merciful to my family.

These days we hold our son and his siblings a little closer, our eyes linger on them longer and the words “I love you,” “I’m proud of you,” and “I’m thankful for you,” come even more readily to our lips. Becky and I discuss how we can serve the Lord more robustly and with more abandon.

God walked with us through the fire and when we came out of the furnace we were untouched by the flame.

My friends. God is kind.

Recently at my church's summer kids program I was tasked with teaching a lesson to a group of 8-11 year olds based on the story in the Bible in Numbers chapter 22 where the prophet named Balaam is hired by a king to curse God’s chosen people, Israel. If you are unfamiliar with the story, basically Balaam is riding his faithful donkey to go see said king and curse Israel. God sends an Angel to block Balaam’s path and kill him. He cannot see the angel but the donkey does and she continuously veers off track to escape the Angel standing in her path. Balaam becomes furious and threatens to kill his donkey if she won’t obey him, then miraculously God allows the donkey to talk to Balaam and she explains the situation! It’s a pretty shocking account. I wonder what the donkey’s voice sounded like?

When I was a teenager and my family moved to Jaipur, India, someone down the street from our new apartment owned a few donkeys. These gentle, comical creatures are a fun animal to see at the petting zoo or a local farm but they aren’t so charming late at night when you are trying to sleep and they keep braying. Throughout my time living in India there was a large variety of animals that would inhabit a given street that we lived on. Most common were stray dogs (also loud at night!) and cats, but there were sometimes cows, bulls, feisty macaques, big grey langurs, green parrots and bright peacocks. Unique to Jaipur were the dogs that walked on top of walls and slept on top of cars. Here in Pennsylvania you dust off the leaves or snow from your car. In Jaipur, you sweep away the dusty sand and shoo the dog off your hood.

It's funny though. Many of us Christians will read our Bible and take at face value the fact a donkey spoke just like Eddie Murphy's Donkey in Shrek. Yet today we don't expect God to do anything miraculous. Maybe we just aren't asking for the miraculous, not expecting it or not looking for it. In Balaam's story he, a prophet, rode a donkey to curse Israel and God miraculously protected his people with a talking donkey. Later in the Bible another man, a prophet and more, Jesus, rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to save Israel. God worked another miracle and salvation was brought to mankind. The same God who made the donkey talk and raised Jesus from the dead, saved my son. It feels like He gave me my son twice. And that same God saved me from my sin and can free you from your sin too if you only ask.

I'm going to keep my eyes open to the miracles God works all around us, become more adventurous in my prayers and I'm going to gratefully serve him. God is kind and He is worthy.

Seth.

P.S. If you appreciate or enjoy the work I am doing at Marvelous India, feel free to say thank you by buying me a cup of chai!

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