Evan and I were stunned. We did not see ourselves as anything important in the Kingdom of The Lord G-D at that time. I had not been called or commissioned to prophet yet. Even knew secretly he was not “saved” and never would be. All of that would be sorted out in the near future. We told the lead neonatologist at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo who was asking us the question who are you about calling our pastor when he summonsed us to come to witness Heidi’s death. He knew our pastor but was certain there was much more to the miracle than our very gifted pastor calling the deacons into a prayer meeting. He was right.
My tiny daughter lived. Well, she not only lived, she thrived. The boy who the extraction team of neonatologists for Children’s Mercy Hospital that came to Research Hospital that day to get contracted blood infections and ended up with spina bifida and cerebral palsy. He turned out to be severely physically and mentally handicapped.
The neonatal specialists told us my daughter might never walk and would never run. Her lungs were too scarred from the pneumothorax, a hole in her lung. They did not expect her to live much past 6 or 7 years of age with the strain the hole in her lung would put on all the other systems in her body. They did not know. Truth as it turns out is she developed normally. My tiny daughter crawled on time. She walked and talked early. She ran around the high school track with her dad as a young girl and won trophies for her high school track team. But her claim to fame is her violin. She is a virtuoso. She is concert master for a youth symphony and a concert violinist herself.
When my daughter came home from the neonatology ward at Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri the neonatologists continued to call me to help the more demanding parents get through those first devastating hours their premature child is placed in the ward. Then one day the lead neonatologist called to say the administrators there had chosen my family to be interviewed and featured by the Independence, Missouri newspaper in behalf of the neonatal ward and the work they do there. We agreed to the interview. The articles ran on the front page of two consecutive Sunday publications.
The course of our lives were forever changed and about to take a big turn in the road.
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