Heart-Ache Part I

The heartache is now over, but I want to record the events that took place around Eva's heart surgery so that a) I will remember what happened, b) one day Eva can read it and c) as a testament to God's faithfulness. If you haven't read anything about this yet, you can catch up at the previous post: A Baby's Heart.

Eva's heart surgery was booked for Wednesday, February 19th.  A few weeks later, her CT Scan was booked Tuesday, the 18th.  When I was arranging all of this via email and phone, I was told that we would need to do the Pre Cardiac Surgery Assessment (PCSA) also, which would take 4-6 hours.  So to be as easy as possible on Eva, we decided to do the PCSA on Monday, the 17th, otherwise it would make for a really long day on Tuesday.

We drove down to Abbotsford on Sunday after church, with many promises of prayer and supportive hugs and gestures from our church family.  Reality was definitely starting to sink in.  Heart surgery for Eva was a real possibility.

The doctors had ordered a CT Scan at Children's prior to surgery to get a clearer picture of Eva's heart and we were told that we would only know if surgery was needed until after the surgeon had a chance to view the CT Scan.  This meant that the whole PCSA on Monday was hinging on the word, "IF".  IF Eva needs surgery, then......

It was hard not knowing 100% what was going to happen.

Also, the Sunday a week before we left, we had the Elders of our church anoint Eva with oil and pray for healing.  Scripture states in James 5:14-15, "Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven."

A couple weeks prior, a friend had encouraged me with his own personal story of healing through anointing and prayer.  Although I know and truly believe that God can and does heal the physical ailments of some people, I hadn't really thought to ask God to heal little Eva's heart without surgery. I couldn't ignore the promise in scripture or the encouragement from this friend and felt very convicted to ask our Pastor to pray over her.

It's hard to have faith like that.  I mean, what if God doesn't heal her?

But what if he does?  I couldn't stop thinking about the testimony that she would be to God's glory if the CT scan showed no coarct at all.

At the end of the day, my faith was in God, not in the miracle.  He is sovereign, holy and love.  His care for my child - his child - is far greater than my own.  I trusted in his perfect will and plan.  Surgery or not, God's will would be done and glory would be brought to his name.

The pre-surgery assessment on Monday was a weighty, long day - which I will write about in Part II.  Stay tuned...