Beautiful People Do Not Just Happen

That Thursday, like so many other days, is indelibly imprinted on my mind.

Our Belfast consultant had previously informed me that Leah’s medical details had been sent to the paediatric haematology team at Bristol Children’s Hospital and that they would be discussing her case that day at a team meeting, with a view to possibly accepting her for treatment.

I hated the thought of being so far away from home, but I had done my online research into the hospitals in Dublin, Belfast and Bristol. I had become increasingly convinced that Leah’s best chances of survival, humanly speaking, lay in her being accepted for treatment at Bristol Children’s Hospital.

I spent most of that Thursday afternoon quietly praying.

At 7.20pm our Belfast haematology consultant phoned me to inform us that Bristol Children’s Hospital had indeed accepted Leah for treatment. I was so relieved and so pleased.

Our first phone call from this doctor on Friday the 19th April had been such a negative experience.

Our first meeting with him had been even worse, but in this phone call I started to see him for the caring, compassionate man that he really is.

I eventually chased him off the phone, as I was sure that the poor man had probably not even had his dinner yet. He had given me all the time that I needed in this phone call.

The fourteen weeks that Leah and I spent in Bristol changed our lives forever.

Some of those changes are very sad, traumatic ones.

I hardly know how to word this, because I will NEVER be glad that my daughter suffered and died, yet I can still appreciate the many positive aspects of our time in Bristol.

I very much appreciate the amazing staff and patients and families that Leah and I met during our time there.

Although I’m heartbroken, yet I’m also enriched, by those that I’ve had the privilege of getting to know along this journey.

A Chance Encounter

The view from Leah’s grave this morning

I know that our daughter isn’t in her grave.

The Bible says ” absent from the body and present with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:8

However, I find a comfort in going to the Cemetery.

It is a peaceful place in which to grieve and remember Leah, away from other distractions.

Sometimes the conversations I have there bring comfort too.

This morning as I watered the flowers on Leah’s grave, another woman stopped to speak to me:

“Is that your daughter? She’s beautiful? So young too.”

We talked for a while. She told me about burying her two sons as young adults, due to a progressive genetic disorder. Turns out she’s a nurse too.

We cried and we hugged.

There can be comfort and blessing in the sharing.

Do you see Jesus in your clouds?

Yesterday I was really blessed at the “Stand 2014” women’s conference run by Cornerstone City Church
Jeremy Deweerdt quoted the following from Oswald Chambers classic devotional My Utmost For His Highest
Do You See Jesus in Your Clouds?
“Behold, He is coming with clouds” . . . —Revelation 1:7
In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. “The clouds are the dust of His feet” (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds— He does not come in clear-shining brightness.
It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child— a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. Until other people become shadows to us, clouds and darkness will be ours every once in a while. Is our relationship with God becoming more simple than it has ever been?
There is a connection between the strange providential circumstances allowed by God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Until we can come face to face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God’s character, we do not yet know Him.
“. . . they were fearful as they entered the cloud” (Luke 9:34). Is there anyone except Jesus in your cloud? If so, it will only get darker until you get to the place where there is “no one anymore, but only Jesus . . .” (Mark 9:8 ; also see Mark 2:7).