The Struggle

Two weeks ago I added ‘studying’ and ‘work placement’ to my already rather full schedule. Since then I have really struggled emotionally. My emotions are screaming at me to give up, that this was a crazy idea. My head is simultaneously reminding me that this is a door that God has opened for me and that I went into this really believing that it’s what I’m meant to be doing. To be fair, it’s only for three months – how hard can that be?

For the past year I’ve worked only three days per week and the other two days have given me space to grieve. Without that space right now I’m struggling – big time. Work isn’t the problem – I love my job, it’s everything else that I’ve added on, albeit temporarily.

Add to that the fact that this time two years ago was when Leah’s illness really took a turn for the worse. The last weekend in September 2013 started off well. Leah was looking forward to a planned meeting on the Monday with our lovely consultant, at which we had been promised that we would be given a date for booking our flights back home to Ireland.

Leah’s boyfriend Nic had flown over to spend the weekend with us. This meant that I had some time to myself – a rare occurrence – I had spent it cleaning and bleaching with another oncology Mummy, getting a house ready for her and her little boy to spend a few hours outside the confines of the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit. She’s Irish too and we had enjoyed the ‘craic’ together. Devastatingly, her gorgeous son Caiden died in similar circumstances to Leah in October 2014.

Then, on the Sunday night, Leah told me that she was passing blood in her urine. So, on Monday, instead of our consultant giving us the dates for booking our flights home, he readmitted us to the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit.  Leah went on to develop a new complication every month until the one at Christmas/New Year that finally claimed her life.

I’ve cried a lot today, whilst wishing that I could use the time to focus on the E-learning that I’m supposed to be doing for this training course. I’ve really found that ‘time management‘ is not one of my strengths since Leah became ill and died.

Then on a shelf in my room I spied a book that I bought recently but hadn’t had time to read. It’s called “When the Hurt Runs Deep” by Kay Arthur. I heard Kay Arthur speak live a few years ago and I loved her energetic style of Bible teaching. She devised the Precepts Bible Study method, I was a regular attender at a local Precepts Bible Study until Leah became ill.

I started reading her book today. On page 73 Kay quotes Psalm 139:13:

Psalm 139:13 (AMP)

For You formed my innermost parts;
You knit me [together] in my mother’s womb.

Kay says that God knows the exact sperm and the precise egg that comes together to make us who we are. This stopped me in my tracks. Leah was conceived while we were having investigations for secondary infertility. Every month we longed and prayed that I would get pregnant. I went for prayer via the “laying on of hands” from those whom God has gifted in the healing ministry. Yet, God in His sovereignty allowed Leah to be conceived with either an egg or a sperm containing a mutated gene that would one day lead to her receiving a diagnosis of myelodysplasia with monosomy 7 caused by a GATA2 deficiency.

Then on page 77 of Kay’s book, I read a passage of Scripture that Leah and I used to read frequently. It brought us such great comfort. Leah’s illness separated us at times from most of what we held dear in life, so we tried to focus on the one certainty that her illness could never deprive us of – God’s love.  

Romans 8:35-39 (NKJV)

³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

³⁷ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Then Kay Arthur writes “No hurt is so strong that it can separate you from His love. Your hurt is not intended to drive you from God but to God.“

Kay’s words remind me once again of the true source of my strength, of the only way that I’ve made it through the past two and a half years – by trusting God and leaning on Him. It isn’t easy and it’s not going to be easy but I just have to keep on going.

Just as the Israelites were told in Exodus 16 to gather the manna (heavenly bread) daily, so I also need to meet with God on a daily basis so that my soul receives the nourishment that it needs to survive and hopefully even to thrive.

Or, to once again quote from my favourite worship singer/songwriter Matt Redman, I must abide in Him:

Abide With Me

I have a home
Eternal home
But for now I walk this broken world
You walked it first
You know our pain
But You show hope can rise again up from the grave

CHORUS
Abide with me
Abide with me
Don’t let me fall
And don’t let go
Walk with me
And never leave
Ever close God abide with me

VERSE
There in the night
Gethsemane
Before the cross
Before the nails
Overwhelmed
Alone You prayed
You met us in our suffering and bore our shame

BRIDGE
O love that will not ever let me go
Love that will not ever let me go
You never let me go
Love that will not ever let me go

VERSE
And up ahead
Eternity
We’ll weep no more and sing for joy
Abide with me
We’ll weep no more and sing for joy
Abide with me

A Longing Fulfilled

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

Proverbs 13:12 NIV

Leah

Seventeen years ago on the 31st December 1997 at approximately 8.30am Leah Alanna Whyte was born in Altnagelvin Hospital, weighing 9lbs 3oz. Her sister Rachel, was three and a half years old.

We hadn’t chosen for the gap to be this big. Leah was conceived while we were having investigations for secondary infertility.

Leah was what the Bible calls “a longing fulfilled“.

If she had been a boy she would have been named Samuel, after the Old Testament story of Hannah, who had longed and prayed for a baby.

Leah

I have always adored babies. As a child growing up I imagined that I would be married by the age of twenty five and then I would have six children. When they had grown up, I imagined that I would become a foster parent, to ensure that my house was always filled with children.

Hmmmm………..somewhere along the way, reality set in.

For starters, by the time I was twenty five, I was conspicuously single. I had just come out of a three and a half year relationship with the man I had thought I was going to marry. My dreams lay in tatters on the floor.

It is good to have plans.

It is good to dream dreams.

However the Bible says

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart,
but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Proverbs 19:21 NIV

Many years on, I hope that I’m learning to be more like Mary, the Mother of Jesus, when she said:

“Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” Luke 1:38 NKJV

Having one child did not lessen my desire for another baby. If anything it intensified it – now I really knew how wonderful it was to be a parent.

I was so excited about being the mother of two children. When we used to pack the car for our regular trips to stay with my mother in Co. Meath, she used to tell me on the phone “I can’t wait to see your girls.”

Rachel and Leah, June 1998

I used to savour that word “girls” – how I loved the fact that it was plural. I used to gaze in wonder at the two child seats in the back of our car and I felt as if my heart was going to burst with joy.

Six months later I was happily pregnant with baby number three – Simon.

A few years later along came a very pleasant surprise – Miriam.

Miriam

When Chris De Burgh’s daughter Rosanna was born he wrote this beautiful song about her.

It sums up how I felt this day seventeen years ago and indeed how I feel about each one of my “babies”.

“For Rosanna”

This is for Rosanna, sweet girl of mine,
A song for the baby who changed my life,
I’ll never forget when I saw you first,
I thought that my heart would burst,
With the love that I have;

As I watch you sleeping in here tonight,
And I hear your breathing so soft and light,
I cannot believe all the things that I feel,
When I hold you next to me,
It’s the love that I have;

Oh how my heart it is shining,
Oh how my heart it is shining,
Oh how this heart is shining through,
With the love that I have;

And as you are growing from baby to child,
I share the wonders that are in your eyes,
And I am amazed at the way you change,
All according to the plan,
And the love that I have;

And when you are older you will go away,
You’ll see injustice and you’ll see pain,
But never forget that I’m always there,
Like a shadow by your side,
With the love that I have;

Oh my love, you have your mother’s eyes,
And when I see you laugh, you have your mother’s smile,
And you are mine all of my life,
You are mine, all of my love,
You are mine, blood of my blood,
You are mine;

Oh how my heart it is shining,
Oh how my heart it is shining,
Oh how my heart it is shining through,
With the love that I have.

Maybe deep down inside we somehow knew this little one would only be with us for a season

“This won’t affect your fertility” I was still groggy from the anaesthetic and doped from morphine but these were very welcome words from Dr Martin, our consultant gynaecologist.

He had just removed a gangrenous ovary and fallopian tube from my left side.

Rachel, our only child at the time, was 18 months old.

By the time Rachel was 2 years old there was still no sign of a brother or sister for her.

I was in my thirties and every month that I didn’t get pregnant felt like a bereavement.

My mother sent money to the Poor Clare nuns in Cork to light a candle and pray for me to get pregnant.

Horace’s sister Evelyn, a Presbyterian deaconess and his other sister Audrey, also laid hands on me and prayed over me.

Horace & I just adored Rachel and knew what a blessing children were & are and we wanted more of this blessing – we were desperate for more children.

For us, having one child didn’t make the longing for a second child any less – if anything it strengthened that longing.

We read books about secondary infertility, talked to trusted friends and went to our GP.

Thankfully and without medical intervention I eventually became pregnant.

Rachel was three and a half years old when Leah was born on New Year’s Eve 1997.

When Rachel was a baby I tried too hard to do everything right – and probably did lots of things wrong – and she seemed to be grown up before I knew it.

This time round was going to be different – I was going to relax and savour every minute of Leah’s babyhood.

In the evening when Rachel had gone to bed & the housework was done, I used to lift my sleeping little baby out of her pram/cot and cuddle her, drinking in her babyness.

Later on when Horace was coming to bed he again lifted Leah from her cot, still sound asleep, and walked around with this placid little baby in his arms, just appreciating her babyhood.

He continued to do this until Leah was a toddler and became too heavy for him to lift and cradle in his arms.

Maybe deep down inside we somehow knew that this little one would only be with us for a season and that we needed to treasure every moment……..