Since God gave us Swaziland, we’ve had folks ask us a lot of questions. Where is that? Why Swaziland? Aren’t you scared? Won’t you miss your family? Are those people friendly?
But, my favorite, though most baffling, question is this, “What are you going to do with your son while you are gone?” Kinda like asking, “Who’s gonna feed your dog while you’re out of town?”
Folks genuinely think we are going to leave him behind for a couple of years while we go away.
Others question the perceived insanity of taking a child to a place like Swaziland, with all the AIDS, malaria, third world living conditions, etc.
The questions are asked with concern and love, so I believe they deserve a genuine response.
Here goes.
About two years ago at this very same time in the fall of the year, Erin was pregnant with Colt.
I was in town working while she was away in Gainesville, GA visiting her mother.
I received a phone call from her early one morning saying she was having problems with the pregnancy and was going to the hospital.
Every bit of breath was sucked out of my life and my heart physically broke, as I literally felt a crushing pain in my chest, heaving to get a breath into my lungs.
I hurt like I had never hurt before, cried like I had never cried before and prayed like I had never prayed before.
Erin’s Mom, Bill (yes, Bill is my Mother-in-law), called me a little while later to report that the ER doctor had run a preliminary test and indeed Erin was having a miscarriage.
The crushing pain became excruciating, beyond anything I had ever known before.
I had an overwhelming feeling that this child was not lost, but that God was going to save this child.
It was a sense that the doctors were wrong, but worse than that, I felt in my soul that the doctors were going to unintentionally kill the child by trying to speed up the process.
I called everyone to start praying.
An hour later, a specialist was called in to give a second opinion.
Bill called me on the phone with the news.
The specialist confirmed what the first doctor had said.
Erin was having a miscarriage and it was in its final stages.
I can not explain the torment that I felt in that moment.
At this time, I knew with all my heart that God was going to save my unborn child.
I could not let the doctors do anything to “help speed up the process.”
I was initially told I could not speak to Erin.
That was soon remedied in a not so quiet manner.
Erin came on the phone and I asked that she promise me that she would not let the doctors do anything to her, no shots, no medications, no ‘procedures.’
God was going to save our child.
Weeping uncontrollably, we agreed that Erin would wait it out in the hospital until the doctors could do the final analysis, a sonogram.
The next hour was the longest in my life.
The pain was unbearable to the point that I thought I was going to implode from the constricting of my chest muscles.
My whole body was hurting from both the emotional and physical strain of the prior hours of crying out to God.
The next call would be life or death.
The phone rang.
Bill was on the other line.
The machines showed a healthy baby with a very strong heartbeat… my boy was alive!
My God was alive!
My faith was alive!
Yes, it was a miracle and God gets all the glory.
Erin and I know that God saved Colt for a very special purpose.
He is ours for a time; to raise, to love, to encourage, to point him to his Father.
But just as Samuel was given back to God, we too know that Colt is God’s child.
Therefore he will go where we go, wherever God calls us as a family.
We are under God’s protection, and as much as I love my son, God loves him more, for it is God who knit him in the womb.
