The gift we didn’t know we needed

The gift we didn’t know we needed

Nine years ago, through a haze of exhaustion and in and out of consciousness because of a reaction to the anaesthesia, I remember turning to see our newborn lying a few metres away in the hospital bassinet and asking my husband: “What is wrong with her?” Fifty hours of labour had ended in an emergency c-section, and as the doctor came in moments later and shared that she suspected our newborn had Down’s syndrome (DS), shock compounded. What had we done wrong? 

With a two-year-old and one-year-old at home awaiting their new sibling’s homecoming, a multitude of fears bombarded us: fears of the implications; fears of other peoples’ judgements; fears of expectations; fears of the future…how were we going to manage? 

It was weeks before I could say that our daughter had Down’s syndrome without crying and it probably took the best part of a year to come to terms with her diagnosis – a year full of hospital appointments and admissions, including open-heart surgery and surgery for gastrostomy feeding tube placement. Part of the struggle to accept Katherine’s diagnoses was to do with letting go of the picture of the ‘perfect’ I had expected.

A number of years ago someone at church declared that within a year Katherine would be healed. It was someone we hardly knew and, while maybe not ill-intentioned, it disturbed me. It also made me wrestle with many questions: Did God want to heal Katherine of Down’s syndrome? Could he? Why did he create her that way? Is it something ‘wrong’ with her, that ‘corrupted’ in the process of conception or did his creating her perfectly include him adding an extra chromosome to every cell? Is it God’s will that Katherine has Down’s syndrome or not? How should I be praying for healing for her? What is God’s purpose and plan in this ‘disability’? 

Down’s syndrome affects Katherine and our family in multiple ways on a day-to-day basis. It has definitely been a steep learning curve and bumpy journey, but as we have journeyed these last nine years, answers have evolved to some of those questions, while others remain unanswered but with some sort of peace about the not knowing and the journey yet to come.

I know God could heal Katherine of Down’s syndrome as nothing is impossible for him. However, we have not prayed that way because we feel God has a purpose in Katherine having Down’s syndrome. I can feel the swirl of other questions, and maybe theologies, rising up as I write that… does God do that…create disability (not that I like that word) for a purpose? Or does he just work good out of a bad situation? I firmly believe that Katherine is a gift to us that we didn’t know we needed. A very good and very precious one. From the shaking of perceptions and breaking of our image of ‘perfection’, to stretching us out of our comfort zone, to the shift in perspective and searching for God in it all, Katherine has shaken much in our lives – much that needed to shake and break. She also brought love and joy in a way that I had not seen or known before. Before she was born, when I was stressing about how I was going to do life with three under three, God spoke to my heart that she was going to be a ‘bringer of joy’ – so clearly in fact that we added Joy to her name. Her full name means: ‘pure, clear, my God has answered me with joy’. And that he has. In unexpected and beautiful ways.

Clare

Dad healed after 20 years

My dad, John, was a postman, and we lived right at the end of the train line in rural west Wales. All the post had to go on the train at the end of the day to go to Birmingham and London. One of Dad’s jobs was to take the mail sacks to the railway station, and throw them on the mail train. 

One day, when I was about two years old, he felt a tweak in his back as he was throwing a mailbag. He didn’t think much of it, but soon found himself in pain. Over the next few weeks, the pain became worse and he found it difficult to walk or move. Mum eventually put a bed in our front room for him as he struggled to get up the stairs. He was bed bound for twelve months and was eventually retired from the post office on medical grounds, which was very hard with three young children. 

Over time he was able to work a little in retail and ran a few shops locally. He was a local preacher, and carried on with preaching when he could, but this all came at a cost. He had to sleep in a tilted wheelchair at night to ease the pain. He used crutches or sticks to get around, and the doctors tried all sorts of things; he even went to London by train for an operation. When he got there, the surgeon refused to operate as he was worried they would paralyse him in the process. Dad was devastated. 

I got married and moved to Essex in 1986; Dad loved the church we went to. A year later, my parents came to visit us. Dad was so poorly that he was almost delirious with pain at dinner before a Friday night church service. I told him not to worry about coming to the meeting. He insisted and, at the end of the service, the minister called him up for prayer, as he often prayed for visitors. As he prayed, my father fell over under the power of the Holy Spirit. I saw him on the floor and I was so upset, as I knew he was in pain, and didn’t know how we would ever help him up. But he got up himself and exclaimed: “I am healed!” I could see on his face it was true. The first thing he did was run back to me. He picked me up and swung me around – something he could never do when I was a child. 

My parents went back to Wales and straight away got rid of all the equipment he had been given – crutches, sticks, the wheelchair. He was very well known in the area, and people were amazed at what had happened. Every time he was asked, he shared what God had done. My father lived to 94 and never stopped giving God the glory. 

Anne

God answers direct prayers

I love clothes, but I am a student so don’t have available funds to buy new. On Wednesday 5 August I was just saying to God how I would really love something gingham, something green, a wrap top and some dresses, because I love to wear dresses. I went to college and thought nothing more about it. That evening, after cell group, I came home and found a pile of clothes on my bed! It was from a friend of my mum’s who was giving some clothes away. I could not believe it when I saw there was a green gingham wrap top and two beautiful dresses that fit perfectly. I felt so loved and known God. My mum’s friend said that the wrap top was new, but when she put it on, she thought: “This is not for me, it’s for Malia!”

Malia