Thursday, December 23, 2021

The Brightest Light


“Years of silence

Waiting on a king

They thought they knew who you would be”

- Behold, Plumb 

 

 

On a crisp morning that heralded the oncoming rainy season, I briefly checked in on the nursery then left our new resident, Spencer, to conclude while I went to the Emergency Room.  Several patients needed attention: a skull fracture, a case of terminal cirrhosis, one of my young HIV patients with heart failure, and a young woman with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy – among others.  I finished a procedure and told the operating room to prepare for the ectopic pregnancy patient before heading back to the maternity ward to check on Spencer.  As I went, Dr. Laura approached me, “There’s a baby that was just born and isn’t doing well – can you come see if there’s more we can do?”

 

I arrived and saw a baby that appeared lifeless being given artificial breaths by Spencer while staff scrambled to grab suction and oxygen.  I made a brief correction the bag-mask technique and checked for a pulse.  An exhausted young mother, Maria, took it in as we scrambled to save her little one.



How many times have I been in that place – walking into an apparent darkness, hoping for signs of life, but unsure of what to expect.  Anticipating the worst yet hoping for a miracle.

 


 

The heart sounded out at about a hundred beats a minute – a reassuring sign.  The fluid around the baby had been deeply stained indicating distress during the labor.  Spencer continued bagging while I assembled the laryngoscope to open the passage into the baby’s voice box.  I handed him the instrument and he quickly visualized the vocal cords, suctioning some secretions away from them, just as the baby began to pick up its own breathing.  After a few minutes of coordinated efforts, the baby’s breathing improved and we cut the umbilical cord to take him into our nursery where he would receive all five interventions we had to offer.

 


 

 

“So we pray we ask and seek

When the answers don’t come easily

And when they’re not what we expect

Help us to trust you even then.”

 

 

Roughly two thousand years ago, a young woman labored with her first child.  The circumstances surrounding his birth were incredible and, to many around her, unbelievable.  What seemed to others a mark of darkness, she cherished as hope in a miracle.  One that would change the entire world. 

 

When the moment came, did the delivery go smoothly?  Not much else in their journey had.  I imagine hours of intense pain, focus, anxiety, anticipation, and fear.  Did he cry right away or were there moments of doubt and concern – awaiting those first and all-important breaths?  But those breaths came - and the life that arose out of them marched an undeniable path through history and brought long-awaited redemption.

 

So often I forget that what we see in the daily miracle of childbirth here was once lived out in a Divine way centuries ago.  Advent helps to remind me.  That the Creator would choose this path to enter our world – enjoying and enduring the full human experience so that we would have a personal God who knows us.  The brightest light, born in a familiar and common darkness.

 

 


 

Over some days, Maria’s baby experienced seizures and side-effects from the medicines we used to control them.  His young mother dutifully attended to him – changing him, cleaning him, praying over him, and showing an impressively calm resolve through eyes that betrayed a simmering doubt.  But she trusted us – and the weight of that trust sits with me even now.

 

Five days into his life, he stopped having seizures and began to drink the small amounts we offered.  Over the next three days, we were able to remove the various tubes administering our treatments and send him to his mother’s bed.  Soon after, she placed him into a string bilum and took him home,  walking her newborn through the crowded marketplace like so many others - with those around her oblivious to the living miracle she held.

 

“Unlikely joy

anticipated hope

Give us your peace

Undeserved love

Such relentless grace

You are our king”