Always faithful...

It was all kind of sprung on me quite unexpectedly, but a grave feeling was enshrouding me at the time, and I knew it wasn't just nothing. It's so difficult to have adult thoughts while still in the body of a child-- it's difficult to know what is right and what is wrong and who's beliefs are legitimate and whose are in vain. The resident specialist came to visit us in the emergency room just after my poor thin and frail wrist had been violated massively. It was all in the hands of an incompetent doctor who had failed quadruple times to thread an IV in to my veins. After surviving multiple surgeries in the past, I had been quite accustomed to the hospital life-style just as so many other little survivors had. I hadn't, on the other hand, been quite prepared for this.

I was at the age where I was on the border of still having those child-like and innocent qualities, but they were just inches away from leaving me. I had, up til this point, known that even though I wasn't the same as every other kid at school, I could still feel as mostly carefree and as immortal as every one else. It all came to a blinding halt though. I was being prepped for a massive blood transfusion and in the time span of about 30 minutes of arriving to the hospital, I realized that my life was about to change forever. The something that felt very, very wrong -- was indeed something very, very wrong. I felt the kind of fear that I had never felt before, I was infinitely scared of dying, a feeling that suddenly struck me like a tonne of bricks.

Death.

I'd never considered it before. What would happen if I wasn't alive anymore? How would I cope without my family? What if I had commit too many of these things... what did they call them? Oh right ... sins. And how did God work anyway? This thing about the Jesus guy.... was it really true? Oh Lord, I don't want to be wrong.

And so with fear brideling my heart, and a doctor that lamented the complications of my 12 year-old body to my shaken mother, I fled the room, mumbling an excuse to use the bathroom. I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to know that I was going to die if I continued to haemmorhage. I pulled down the lid of the toilet seat and sat down. I plugged my ears with my forefingers, careful not to hurt my already bruising wrist, or knock the temporarily capped-off, canular. I fought the tears back so hard, but they defeated my attempts. So I sat and cried and prayed to this person that I had never known or bothered to learn anything about.

I started out saying, "Dear God, please forgive me for all the bad things that I have done. I don't want to die. I don't want to be sick. I want to be healthy. Please God, make that happen for me." I went on asking him to bless love on to everyone possibly that I knew, including distant cousins and family that I'd never met. All I could ascertain at 12, was that God was a vengeful being who was punishing me for every bad thing that I had ever committed in my life. And I truly was sorry.

I was still too proud to ask my family questions about God, for fear of their scorn or incase they made me feel stupid. I didn't have anyone to ask. So I just prayed every single night. My transfusions went throughout the night, possibly the longest night I have ever lived through -- if that makes sense. I was scared to sleep for fear of not waking up. For months afterward, still with doctors scratching heads, I prayed. Morning and night, almost as if it was some fanatical and superstitious regime and if I forgot, I would pray doubly hard before bed.

I had no idea why I was praying or who I was praying to-- but it comforted me and that encouraged my belief, if only just fleeting.

The nightmare didn't end. I began to fear a visit from the doctor doing his rounds every morning and while they shared the bad news with my parents, I hid in the ward bathroom, ears plugged so I couldn't hear (even though I caught bits and pieces of things like, "50% chance", and "no gaurantee", etc) and prayed. Sometimes if nothing else, I just prayed for the doctor to leave.

After awhile they came to their conclusions as to what caused my haemmorhage. I needed a bypass surgery and since I have missing vital organs already, the surgery would be as tricky as it could be. I was horrified. It was to happen 2 months down the track. No school, no going out, no doing anything that would induce more stress on my body.

Hello couch potato.

I prayed morning and night still. It turned in to something that was just words, I did it because I felt obliged, if I didn't God would let me die. I think it was more superstitious than faithful. But something was encouraging me to pray, something had lit a spark in me to begin with to even give God a thought, especially after coming from such a Godless background. I even changed my ways for awhile. For a 12 year-old, I had a pretty foul mouth (thanks to my older brother and trying to fit in with his friends!) and listened to some pretty outlandish music (gangsta rap! I thought I was Tupac's best homie! ha!) but I stopped all of that. I tried only to be nice to everyone because I didn't want to feel God's wrath anymore.

I felt constantly fearful that at any second I could just keel over. Memories of crying and wondering why, when all my friends were so happy and carefree always seem to make me laugh now.

The surgery went well. God didn't let me down. He gave me an obstacle with a specific purpose. While he gave me fear he also gave me strength and while he took away my mobility temporarily, he gave me the courage to not give up on the will to keep fighting through medical bout after medical bout. He also gave me the wiseness of someone double my age, and way of viewing the world forevermore that set me apart from my peers. Sometimes I don't recognise this as the blessing that it is. Sometimes, I feel God left me jaded and cynical of other people's problems as they are not as life and death as a lot of mine have been. Those feelings shame me.

My faith didn't continue for too much longer after my recovery. I thanked God for his grace and ran from it because it was too hard for me to live in faith with such a judgemental family who joked about religious types. "Thanks God, see ya!" But Praise God that he tried again 10 years on.

When I think of this, it reminds me of how I sometimes (in my more cynical state-of-mind) feel that prayer is futile. What's the point of it? ... but funnily enough when I'm down and out, no one else can help me besides my Lord. How dare I turn him away when things are great? I make the effort to Praise Him more for the good, and just trust and open my heart more when they aren't.

So many wonderful things happen in my life and sometimes I forget who is responsible for it. Silly me for being so self-absorbed at times that I fool myself in to believing, if only for a split second, that good graces came to me just because I made myself who I am. It's laughable really.

And this friends, is one of the most beautiful gifts that God graced me with;

Her name is Billie. Yes, that's right. As in Billie Jean. Who looked more like a movie scene. With every head that turned with eyes that dreamed of being the one. Who would dance, on the floor, in the round. She's my pretty baby with the high heels on.... and so on and so forth. Excuse me-- poor comic relief for such a heavy post.

Take care and God Bless you all who read this.
Jess