"Faith" by Inspirational Author Staci Stallings

Faith

In the abyss between life and death resides only faith. Experts call this abyss "Motherhood."

Lying on a cold, hard bed only six months along with my first child, I faced the frightening implications of this truth. My body shook uncontrollably as terror clutched at me. My only lifeline was my husband's hand gripping mine over the abyss as love for life-mine and that of our tiny, still-unseen child's-burned deep in our hearts. One after another after another the nurses piled the bloody sheets into the corner until the doctor pronounced those fateful words, "The baby's coming."

Then, with control slipping past me into a haze of drugs and fear, I finally made that one, final leap-the leap from control to faith-the leap from childlessness into motherhood.

The next thing I remember was my husband's hand once again holding mine as he said the words that officially changed my life forever, "We have a little girl."

For the next two months images blurred together as ups and downs alternated at break-neck speed. One minute spent holding my two-pound and yet weightless daughter next to me versus the next three weeks spent holding only tiny fingers through an isolet window-waiting for the next opportunity to take my baby again.

The drugs, powerful enough to keep her safe from infection, again and again blew through her small veins while all I could do was watch, pray, and hang onto the faith that somehow we would get through this. If we could just make it to the next horizon, through the next transfusion and the next round of drugs, then everything would be all right, then I could live again. Until then, survival was my only goal.

In the darkness of a soul in crisis, my prayers became much deeper and far simpler. No longer was I praying for selfish requests. Now my prayers centered wholly on the tiny baby God had entrusted to my care. The Lord has said, "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you" (Psalms 55:22), and during those long days, that was all that kept me going.

As simple as that sounds, however, reality was that my only real positives were formed by the negatives. "It's not pneumonia." "It's not an infection." "We won't have to put the IV in her head-this time." The struggle to live was being waged not only by the tiny baby lying helplessly in the incubator, but by her mother's spirit as well. Fear laced every call to the hospital, every question, every conversation. But always the faith remained. Somehow we would make it. Somehow God sustained us. Somehow…

Then in one faltered heartbeat the negatives became negatives again, and I faced a test of faith even more terrifying than my own journey through the abyss-my baby's journey to the edge of the River Jordan. All her veins had been blown. A new IV would have to be put in her head-all the other options had been exhausted.

"'She's going to be okay. You've just got to have faith.'"

In utter desperation I left the hospital with my husband, and on a rain-soaked highway with the amber glow of the streetlights flashing above me, I reached a place that I had never known existed-the place where faith no longer resides.

"Why?" I asked the darkness around me. "Why?"

But God has promised, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5), and I am here to tell you, He does indeed send messengers to help when you ask. Truth is, even in that moment of despair, mine was sitting right by my side-exactly where he had been throughout the whole ordeal. Slowly my husband reached over, took my hand, and spoke the words that I would cling to not only for this one night but for the rest of eternity. "She's going to be okay. You've just got to have faith."

It's been five years since that night, but those words will be with me always. Every time I let my baby-big girl, now-off at play school. Every time my second daughter lets go of my hand and walks off on her own. Every time one child or the other screams in pain or in fear at two o'clock in the morning-the words come back to me, "She's going to be okay. You've just got to have faith."

In the days to come, the phrase will only become more powerful. During the long nights when the girls fail to call or on the days when they experience their own griefs, the words will be there to help me through. Time and again as I hold my children for one brief moment and then release them into the abyss, the words will be there.

Through school, best friends, boyfriends, first dates, first heartbreaks, in partnership with God and my husband, I will remain the rock on which these two girls can build their lives. Until someday in some beautiful sunlit church, I will watch from a front pew as they stand before God and pledge themselves to another forever. Then as they turn, kiss me, and walk away into their own lives, the words will again be there. "She's going to be okay. You've just got to have faith."

The day will come of course when the abyss will stretch before me again "when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory" (Colossians 3:4)

In some darkened room on another cold, hard bed I will step toward the abyss to make my final journey home. However, this time I will have not one but three sets of hands to hold onto. Then, looking up into the eyes of the two beautiful women my daughters have become, the sadness at our imminent parting will be there, but a greater understanding will hold me also.

Beyond a doubt, I know that as I slip from the darkness of this world into the light beyond, I will hear that voice one more time: "They're going to be okay. You've just got to have faith."