The Day the Earth Stood Still

By Brenda Adams

The numbers on the clock on the wall will be indelibly imprinted in my mind.  The nine hours of labor had culminated with the birth of our precious baby.  I could tell by the doctors comments that any minute our little one would be here.  Nine months of carrying the most treasured of all gifts.  Nine months of dreaming, praying, hoping and planning.

My eyes fixed on the wall clock so I would be aware of the exact moment that our baby would enter our world.  Finally all of the questions would be answered: boy or girl, whose mouth, whose eyes, what color hair and eyes.  Finally, she was here - the numbers on the clock read 10:05 a.m.  The doctor informed us that we had a baby girl.  The date of birth was July 19, 1985.  We were elated, ecstatic with joy.  She was a miracle in every sense of the word.

It was impossible for me to get pregnant because of extensive damage done by an egtopic pregnancy fourteen years earlier.  The entire left side of my reproductive organs had literally exploded.  Four stages of internal hemorrhaging, a ruptured appendix and many other complications had sealed my fate as impossible to conceive.

Frank and I had adopted our darling Miranda four years earlier.  She was the fulfillment of every desire that I had so desperately tried to fill.  I was perfectly content with being Miranda’s mother.  I didn’t need anything else to make my life complete.

But God’s purpose for sending this baby of miracle conception was for an entirely different purpose.  We didn’t have a clue that she would be the instrument in the hands of a loving God that would purify our lives and open to us a new awareness of who God is and take us on a journey of revelation of His character.  God’s ways are truly higher than our ways.

Looking back, I now know that there wasn’t the usual excitement by the hospital staff that surrounded my bed.  The doctor laid my precious baby girl on my chest and the joy of seeing her for the first time was indescribable.  I didn’t realize that her silence was out of the ordinary.  I didn’t realize that her outstretched arms and limp form was any indication of something wrong.

The staff took her away to be checked out.  We had no idea that those few short minutes with her on my chest would be the last moments that we would be connected to our dreams for a perfect and healthy baby.  That dream was about to die.  All of the plans, hopes and dreams that we had for this baby would be dashed in just a few short hours.

We were totally unprepared for the news that would follow.  I had done everything right.  I had taken care of myself - read all of the books - I was informed.  There was one thing I had not done that would have revealed our babies condition.  Because of my age of 35, I was offered the amniocentesis.  I was made aware of the possibility of losing the baby by having the test done.  I didn’t want to run the risk of losing the baby to discover something wrong.  If there was something wrong, aborting the pregnancy was out of the question.

All of the doctor’s visits were positive.  Everything was right on course.  Strong heart - everything was in place for a healthy baby.

It was later in the afternoon when my doctor came into my room with the news.  He went into great detail with his explanation.  He had called in several pediatricians who had all concluded that our baby was born with Downs Syndrome.  His explanation was cold and text book.  As he talked to us it was like she wasn’t even human.  They advised us that it would be best for everyone to place her in an institution where she could be cared for and we could go on with our lives.

Down the hall there were babies in the nursery.  There were boy babies and there were girl babies.  And then there was our baby - a Downs, Mongoloid baby.  Mongoloid - ice went down my spin every time he said the word.

How could this happen?  We did everything right.  I held myself together until the doctor left the room.  All of a sudden I was all alone.  The air stopped moving, my breath stopped, my heart broke into a million pieces.  I felt myself walk up to the edge of the earth and it stopped.  I was frozen, suspended somewhere between reality and disbelief.  There was no way back from this place where I was forever separated from the perfect baby I thought I had.  She was dead.  I had to bury her.   But I didn’t have her long enough.  I didn’t want to let her go.  I didn’t know this baby down the hall, this Mongoloid.  Dear God, what did that word mean?

So many issues - I had given birth just hours before and I now I had to bury the baby I dreamed of and I had to somehow discover who the baby was in the nursery.  I wept and mourned for the baby we lost.  I wept and mourned for the baby down the hall and I wept and mourned for myself, for Frank and for Miranda.

I had waited so many years for this moment.  Finally at the age of 35 I conceived a child and had a wonderful pregnancy.  Our little family was thrilled that we would be bringing a baby home and now this.  Suddenly we hit a brick wall.  What do we do now?  Where do we go from here?  Can we fix this?  Can this be turned around somehow?  I frantically searched for an escape from this reality, but there was no light at the end of this tunnel.

In anguish of heart I turned to Frank and asked, how did this happen to us?  This was supposed to be a wonderful day in our lives.  His reply to me was “Honey, all I know is that the Bible says that the rain falls on the just and the unjust and God is a good God.  We will just have to keep walking and God will be with us.”  So that is where we decided to stand, however weak and broken, we chose to believe that God was good.  We chose to get to know our little girl and we would take her home.

We named her Rebekah Renee.  We would learn much later that the name Rebekah translated means “a noose, to tie up.”  This tiny little girl would confine me to a place where I would hear the voice of God speaking things to me that He had tried for so long to make me hear and understand.

We were shown the characteristics that indicated Downs Syndrome.  The simian crease and the palmar fold in the palm of her hand and on the back of her neck, the space between her large toe and second toe.  But her eyes were perfectly round - they were like big pools of love.  Every response that came from her echoed love to us.

We came to the place where we decided that the crease, the fold, the space in the toes was simply Rebekah.  They weren’t “characteristics” - they were just the details that made her Rebekah.  Regardless of any markings on the outside, her emotions were perfect.  Yes, she would need extra help, but her capacity to give and receive love was perfect.

We took our little girl home and got to know her.  She wasn’t at all what the doctors had said about her.  She was very high functioning.  At three months old she was performing four month gross motor skills.  She would do well if she had the chance.

At two months of age she began to show symptoms of something out of the ordinary with her respirations.  After being examined by the pediatrician it was soon discovered that she had a hole in her heart that would require surgery, but we would try to wait until she was closer to 18 months old for the surgery.

At three and a half  months she was hospitalized with an upper respiratory infection.  There she experienced many complications from mis-diagnosis as well as reactions to drugs given.  In reaction to one of these drugs she had a respiratory arrest that put her on a ventilator where she would remain for the next seven months.  After being transported to the hospital where she would have the heart surgery, she had a cardiac arrest.  Her heart was stopped for 20 minutes leaving her with severe brain damage.  From that she lost her vision, her ability to eat and began having seizures.  We battled quality life issues.

We were advised to remove her life support and let her go and if not that our lives would be destroyed.  But we chose life for Rebekah and we battled the system.  In God’s sovereignty He sent us a third year resident pediatric cardiologist to fight for her.  He stood up for her and convinced her doctors that she would come off the respirator if she had heart surgery.  He fought for our right to choose life for our child against their desire to terminate her now further diminished quality of life.

Finally we succeeded and Rebekah had her heart surgery and came off the respirator within 24 hours and in four weeks we brought her home.  The next three years was a difficult journey.  There was pain, suffering, blindness, seizures, a G-tube for feeding and other complications too numerous to go into.

Rebekah’s condition now was the thing that closed me in from the outside world and “tied me up” so that all other voices would be silenced and God’s voice would finally have the preeminence in my life.  All the while God’s grace was poured out to all of us.  Grace to endure, grace to go on and grace to believe that “We would again see the goodness of God in the land of the living.”  PS 27:13

For two years we dealt with intense pain with her digestive system.  Her world now was dark after losing her sight which resulted in fear and insecurity.  My parents came to stay with us during the week and would go home for the weekends.  Every effort was for survival.  There was no sleep.  I would look at people in the grocery story and wonder how much sleep they got.  There was nothing normal about our lives.  It would have seemed that the doctors were right, that it would destroy us, except that God had a plan. 

After two years of struggle and pressure, I was at the point of complete physical and emotional break down.  I questioned God’s character.  How could He have allowed this to happen to our baby?              There were long nights of her screaming with pain and nothing we did helped.  I cried out for help and there was none.  The heavens were brass.      

One Sunday almost two years after bringing Rebekah home from the hospital, Frank said to me “Honey, why don’t you go to church this morning.  I’ll stay with Rebekah.”  I didn’t want to go, but the opportunity to leave the house for any kind of diversion was appealing, so I went. 

I can’t tell you what the minister spoke on or anything else that went on in the service, but I can remember very clearly my conversation with God.  I looked up into heaven and asked, “what do you want?”  This was the question that He had been waiting to hear.  God’s voice spoke back to me quickly and clearly.  He said “I want you to surrender.  I want your whole heart.”  I didn’t comprehend what all that meant, but I knew that I had to respond in obedience.  I made a decision at that moment to surrender myself to the complete lordship of Jesus Christ.

Over the next several months God talked to me very specifically about lordship and revealed the areas of my heart that I had kept for myself.  I had allowed Him to be Lord in some areas while holding on to others for myself.  This process brought me to the place where I said “Lord, for the rest of my days, whatever your will is for my life, the answer is yes.”

It wasn’t long before all of the intense pressure that enveloped our lives stopped.  The atmosphere cleared and a peace came over Rebekah.  She no longer had bouts of pain.  She began to sleep at night and we could sleep. 

We had her for another year and a half.  A year to love her, to hold her and to be captivated by the sense of purpose that radiated from her very presence.  God told us of His plan to take Rebekah home where He would bring justice to the pain in her life.  He told me that as soon as she got there that He would tell her everything.  Tell her why she came, why she suffered and that He would make it all alright with her.  He also reminded me of the nights that I cried and out for help and there was none.  He said, “Brenda, in your darkest hour, I held you in the palm of My hand.  I was always in control of the pressure.  I had to allow the pressure to break you, but I would not have allowed it to crush you.”  We can always trust the loving heart and hands of God that means all things for our good.  Things that in the natural would harm us, but in God’s hands will only bring us good.

Frank and I had been in the ministry for ten years prior to Rebekah’s coming.  We had been discouraged and had left the ministry and thought that life would be easier in the secular world.  We realized now that things are never easy in life and that fulfilling the call of God in your life is the only thing that can bring true happiness and fulfillment.  So we made plans to return to ministry and it wasn’t long before a pastoring position in a church opened for us.  It was in that place that we spent our last months with our darling Rebekah.  We loved on her, kissed her and held her tight.  We knew that we wouldn’t have her much longer, but it was no longer life at any cost.  We now wanted her to be free, whatever that meant for us.

Our journey was long and hard.  It was painful, but it was God’s greatest gift to me beyond my eternal salvation.  God’s voice came to me through a beautiful little girl with long flowing ash-blonde hair that I’m sure was likened only to the angels and whose countenance would connect you immediately to things eternal.  When you looked into her face all you could see was the love of God.  It was like God carved out part of His heart and sent it to earth in the form of this small child.  This child who would never ride a bicycle, never play with a baby doll or see a sunset.  A child that I would never hear call me Mama, yet her life was filled with divine purpose.

Her mission here was for a short three and a half years, but the things that she accomplished will only be accounted for in eternity.  She came in the purposes of God, the struggles of her life served to purge and purify her Mother and because she came I was finally freed to become the woman I am today.