I looked at this word, Ask, and I thought ‘I don’t want to write about asking for something, about those superficial wants we all have...I don’t want to share my ‘Christmas list’ with anyone’. Right away I had a vision pop into my head of someone kneeling in prayer and realized that holy spirit was leading me in the place that this blog theme was most likely intended. Asking God for what we need, not asking others for what we want.
I admit, prayer in the way that most would think of it is not my strength. I always say I would like to be more prayerful, envision myself as having a prayer room with sheets of prayer requests on the walls etc but I just don't seem comfortable doing that. Maybe that's lame, but it's not for lack of faith. I have my own way of praying to God and thanking him and requesting things of him. It tends to be more conversational, more thought processes as opposed to getting down on my knees or even just sitting quietly and talking to God. I decided to share one of the times that I did clearly receive a message from God, when I asked for a sign and I got it. This next little bit of my blog post is actually taken directly from a post from last December. It's sort of a recollection of where I was at in the time after Cole was gone, after many weeks have passed, and I was still in the hospital and still very unsure of what was going to be Cameron's future. I was exhausted, I was tired of being away from home, and I was ready for a change.
My faith didn’t seem very strong at times in those months in the hospital but it did give me a sense of hope. Unfortunately I didn’t have the strength in my faith to trust God and not feel anxious. Often, on times where the stress of being away from home and feeling deeply lonely, the wish to move forward definitely won out. It's not that I wanted Cameron to be very premature but I felt more ready for that to happen since he was at a safer gestational age and I was not so scared. I was caught between wanting to keep him in for so much longer and wanting to move on the next stage of joy and grief.
And so for the first time in a long time I actually prayed. I asked God to help me, to give me a sign to show me that my boredom, homesickness and anxiety about the birth (and the desire to speed this process up) were selfish and not where my head should be. I didn't ask God for much in those days...I prayed in my own way but tried to only ask him to guide and help me. The night before the surgery in December, the night we learned about TTTS, I had asked God to be with both my boys and to save them both. The outcome wasn't what I asked for, for reasons I knew I wasn’t meant to understand this side of Heaven. So I stopped praying for concrete things like that because I didn't want to be disappointed and have my faith questioned in my head. I trusted in God to give me what He felt was best. But that day I asked for a sign and later on felt myself drawn to a place on a support message board that I hadn't looked at yet. It was the NICU support board and I read a post from a mom about her boys.
They were born at 31 weeks 2 days and her donor baby was 3 lbs 6 oz. He suffered heart issues and kidney issues at birth, was ventilated and then on the CPAP for a few weeks. Things seemed to be going well for him and then when he was 3 weeks old they discovered he had 2 brain bleeds and they were told his disabilities would be severe. This really hit home for me because at 31weeks 4 days Cameron was 3lbs 10 oz and he too was a donor baby who, like this little one, was 'stuck' with no amniotic fluid. It made me realize that although everyone says 32 weeks, or close to it, is the big 'safe' place to get to in preterm births, it isn't always safe. That 32 week marker is based on babes who are 'just' preterm.....not ones compromised by other situations like TTTS or pPROM. There are no guarantees that if Cameron was born at this gestational age that his fate would be any different from this other baby's.
Those last two paragraphs are taken from things I wrote while in the hospital and I am once again struck by how the Holy Spirit was working. He lead me to that website and to that story. He answered my prayer with a sign and, to this day, it’s one of the most concrete signs I’ve ever felt I got from God.
So while I don't ask for much in really any areas of my life including my faith life, I do see clear times when asking God for signs, confirmation or the help and support we needed, He would deliver. I've learned through the years that what we ask for in prayer is often answered but just not always in the way we anticipated.
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