Now My Eyes Have Seen Him

Happy Friday, friends!

I hope your week held more mercies than messes, but if not, grab that cup of coffee (or glass of wine if it’s evening) and settle in for our weekly chat.

Every year, as this week approaches, I find myself not only navigating end-of-year chaos but also sitting in the tension of both celebrating and reliving a day, eight years ago, that feels like both a blessing and a burden.

Eight years ago, during this exact week, we had just been released from the hospital after our son had a milrinone pump placed in his belly. This pump would release medicine into his body to help his heart function while he waited to receive a new one. We were staying at my aunt’s house in Charleston, SC, close to the hospital, until I could get used to caring for the pump on my own.

After only five days on the heart transplant list, truly unheard of, I answered a phone call at 11 pm that would forever change our lives. The heart team had located a new heart for Jones, and they would perform the eight-hour surgery the next day.

The next 24 hours were a whirlwind of emotions that I never hope any parent has to experience: fear that this could be the last time I held my baby boy. Grief that another parent was losing their child so that mine could have a second chance at life. Joy that Jones was receiving a new heart. Anger that we had to deal with any of this at all. Anxiety over what our future held, even if the surgery was successful.

But underneath all of those emotions was always a steady stream of strength and peace. I knew that God was holding us through it.

My biggest prayer as we wheeled Jones back to the operating room was simply that Jesus would be in that room with him. I imagined Him there — hands resting on the surgeon’s shoulders as they worked, smoothing Jones’s hair back from his face with a gentle touch, whispering constant words of peace.

When we were called back to see him at 2 in the morning, I have never felt such a rush of relief in my life. Even though our son was hooked up to countless machines, he was there — his new heart successfully beating in his little chest. Tears rolled down our cheeks as they showed us this tiny, precious gift on the ultrasound.

Every year, I allow myself to recount this story. I open my heart to every emotion I need to feel, because trust me — those emotions will never fully leave me. I talk to God about it. I talk to my husband about it. I talk to Jones about it.

And now, I share it with you.

Not because I want sympathy. Not because I need to vent. And certainly not to stir fear in other parents.

I share it because our story is a testament to the faithfulness of God. In the trenches of our story and in its triumphs, Jesus has sustained, comforted, healed, strengthened, and provided for our family in ways I never could have imagined. And He is still working in it today.

Before Jones’s diagnosis, I knew God and I believed in Him. During and after — I experienced Him. And I will never be the same.

So that is where we are landing today. Let’s dig in.

1,000 Names by Phil Wickham

I know you by a thousand names

And you deserve every single one

You’ve given me a million ways

To be amazed at what You’ve done

Phil Wickham has an amazing acoustic album that I sometimes put on at night while the boys are falling asleep. Earlier this week, this song came on and tears sprang to my eyes.

The second line goes like this: “I call You Healer, You can mend any broken heart.”

During a week where I am revisiting Jones’s physical heart being mended, it felt like a reminder straight from Him.

As I listened more closely, I realized how many names and roles our Father actually holds in our lives. Many times, we put Him in a box, allowing Him to be the One who offers guidance, the One who forgives our sins, or the One who created everything.

But God is so much more than just one thing, and He desperately wants us to step into the fullness of who He is.

As much pain as our heart journey with Jones has caused, I also believe that it has helped me see more clearly who God is and what He is capable of.

Songs like this remind us that He is everything we need, and as His children, we have access to experiencing His love in so many different ways.

And that is exactly what I want to dig into today, because I think most of us are only scratching the surface of who He actually is.

If you are not super familiar with Job, here is what you need to know: he was a good man who loved God and lived faithfully. And then, in what feels like a blink, he lost nearly everything. His children, his health, his livelihood. He sat in his suffering and wrestled hard with God, asking the questions that most of us are too afraid to say out loud.

But here is the thing about Job that I love. He did not walk away. He stayed in it, and on the other side of that suffering, he said something that has always stood out to me.

In Job 42:5, he looks back at everything he has been through and says this: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” Before the hard thing, Job knew about God. After it, he knew Him intimately.

The truth is, we often don’t discover the fullness of God until our circumstances strip us down and our need for Him takes center stage.

Suffering is a part of our fallen world. It just is. But God uses it to pull us closer to Him and reveal the sides of Himself we may not have known to reach for.

From a very young age, I reached for God to be my Forgiver, my Guide, my Savior. I read what He could do, I knew He loved me, and I knew His ways were good and true.

But when my son was deathly sick, I experienced God in a way I never had before. That peace that surpasses understanding: I was covered in it. The Healer whose hands mended and repaired: I saw it with my own eyes. The Provider who sustains you and makes sure you have what you need: I watched as He showed up through generous friends and family. The Shepherd who never lets His sheep get lost: He found me when I turned to other things for comfort. The Defeater of Death, who conquered the grave and offered us an infinite future: He pulled me back from the grief I was drowning in.

Before Jones got sick, I knew God. But now, my eyes have seen Him.

Every year this week arrives, and it feels complicated. On Sunday morning at church, I teared up during worship, and that night on the couch, I told my husband about the anxiety I was feeling. I look back at the videos and pictures from that time in our lives, and it makes me both joyful and sad in one breath.

We celebrate Jones’s heartiversary with him every year like a second birthday: cake, usually a present, lots of talking about the miracle we all witnessed. And it is a huge celebration. Even directly after his heart transplant, I had no clue whether we would make it to this point with him. Now he is playing every sport he wants to, going to school with his buddies, and doing all the things every parent hopes their child will do.

In the back of my mind, there is a place of grief and worry that I sometimes visit, because his life and ours will be forever different because of this diagnosis and surgery. I should sweep past that, keep it buried, and only focus on what is in front of me. Shouldn’t I just be grateful by now? Shouldn’t it get easier?

But here is what is true: as I wrestle with all of those emotions, I get to remember what that season opened up for me. I am faced with the reality that I never would have met the side of God that cradled my family in that hospital room any other way. And I ask myself this question: how many names of God would I not have known to call on if it had not happened?

Now I ask you the same question.

I do not know what situation you are thinking about as you read this today. But I do know that as moms, we all have situations that bring up complicated emotions. How different would your relationship with Christ be if that situation had not created the space for Him to step in? What name of God did you learn in that season?

Whatever you have been through, or are in the middle of right now, God is there too. He is not absent from it. He is using it, and He will repurpose every heartbreaking moment. At the end of it, I believe you will have experienced a new facet of God’s character that you could not have found any other way.

So, and I am speaking this over myself just as much as over you, remember: the hard thing is never the end of the story. In God’s hands, it just becomes a part of it.

As parents, we can sometimes be tempted to protect our children from the hard things by not talking about them. We want to shield them from the pain we know that season caused, even if they cannot remember it.

But there is a difference between burdening your child and honoring their story with them.

On my phone I have the app Timehop, which shows me videos and pictures from the same date in previous years. As we get closer to this time, I always show Jones and his brother the videos and pictures from our hospital stays, both before and after his transplant.

It opens up so many conversations in our home about how God provided, how strong and brave Jones was, and how many people showed up for him. It also allows Jones to ask questions and process the experience year by year as he gets older.

Some questions are difficult to answer, and some videos feel uncomfortable to watch. But we want Jones to grow up knowing that his story is not a sad thing that happened to him. It is a testimony that belongs to him. And the earlier he begins to see God’s faithfulness in his own life and in ours, I hope the deeper his faith will root.

Is there a difficult part of your family’s story that you are tempted to keep buried? If so, think about how talking about it openly might help point to God in the middle of the mess.

Because I am learning that families who tell their stories out loud raise kids who know how to find God in their own.

Lord,

The deeper I fall into relationship with You, the more of Your names I discover to be true.

Each difficult moment I face brings me a new part of You to experience.

As I look back on the things I wish were different, help me see You in them. Help me see how You use the pain, the grief, and the fear to show me that You are my Protector, my Comforter, and the Author of our days ahead.

May we sing loudly of each new part of You we experience, so that others might be drawn into Your love.

Thank You for the gift of Jones. For the gift of his new chance at life. I am forever grateful to know him more and more with each passing year. Help him see the plans You have for him and step into them with all of his little soul.

Amen.

Until next week, Blair