Fact: The word “miracle” is derived from the old Latin word miraculum meaning "something wonderful.” However, there are many different interpretations of the word, even within the same religion. |
Glimpses of Grace
by M. Alex Montgomery
Have you ever heard the expression, God is ‘The Rock'? But when hard times come and you need something to stand on, does it occur to you? Picture a boulder the size of our Earth in the middle of a huge field. Can anything on our planet move it or budge it? No, and that's what God is. He is the Rock that can't be moved by anything ! All we have to do is choose to stand on this Rock, but often times we choose to stand on humans, who can be moved. This is a story about a person who did stand on The Rock and how it supported her and her family.
After a somewhat tenuous pregnancy, complicated by temporary diabetes and a terrible respiratory infection, the baby was finally being born! After a successful Caesarean Section, more commonly known as a C-Section, Aric Montgomery entered the world in the morning. His first cry, however, was incredibly hoarse. The nurses carried the newborn baby down to be cleaned up, registered, and put in the nursery. An hour later, the doctor called the baby's mother, Sheryl Montgomery, and informed her that Aric was having trouble breathing and was going to be held in the nursery a little longer than usual.
Around one in the afternoon that day, the doctor called back saying that he suspected pneumonia and they needed to intubate Aric to get the necessary oxygen into his body. The doctor than called back at five o' clock in the evening saying that he feared sepsis, or infection throughout the body, was setting in. He recommended to Sheryl and her husband Malcolm that Aric needed to be transferred to a Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) thirty miles away.
At around seven o' clock that night, an ambulance took Aric, with Malcolm following behind in his car, to the hospital with the NICU. The following morning, when Aric was only a day old, the doctors told Malcolm that Aric was going into Persistent Fetal Circulation-when a baby's blood circulation changes back to the way when the baby was in the womb and does not breathe out of its lungs*. Few babies ever come out of this condition alive. They chemically paralyzed him, and in order to provide minimal stimulation, put blinders over his eyes and mufflers over his ears. Numerous IV's ran into his body (see picture), and he was on a jet ventilator pumping one-hundred percent oxygen into his lungs.
On the second day, Malcolm and a fellow pastor came and prayed over Aric's body. Sheryl was still in the hospital recovering from her surgery but felt peace at what was going on around her. She leaned on her Rock, the only Rock that can bear everything: God. On the fourth day after the successful surgery, Sheryl was released from her hospital, and she got to go and visit her baby thirty miles away, although Aric couldn't be touched, held, or taken off any IV lines. On the seventh day, Aric was taken off minimal stimulation and the chemical induced paralysis, but he was still on sixty five percent oxygen intake.
On the ninth day, Aric was taken off the machines, and Sheryl got to hold her baby for the first time. On the eleventh day, the rest of the family was taken to the hospital, and through a glass screen, they got to see their new baby brother.
Aric was released form the hospital and taken home on his thirteenth day of life. He is now completely healthy without any side effects from the life-threatening situation at his birth. In Isaiah chapter 40 the Bible tells us that “…Those whose hope is in the Lord will renew their strength. They will rise up on wings like eagle, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint.” When hard times come, and you are standing on shifting sand, place your trust in the Lord, who is the Rock.
Special Thanks:
Malcolm and Sheryl Montgomery for their input
God for this event
* Source: http://www.chw.org/display/PPF/DocID/23385/router.asp accessed 11/9/07 .