Children awake with pains in their bellies on a regular basis as well as wake up in desperate need of a doctor but with no means of seeing one.
Today the 4 month old daughter of my Ugandan friend died of a rare but fixable heart defect, truncus arterious. This is basically a hole in the heart as well as missing one (of two) main vessels that transports blood between the heart and lungs. This is a defect that if a child in America is born with, it is diagnosed and fixed before the infant leaves the hospital.I’m told that infants just don’t survive this type of defect for 3 months without surgery. Baby Melanie was 4 months old.
The prayers of the saints were heard when God miraculously presented a medical center in the US to sponsor this surgery as well as a surgeon who donated his time to perform this "life saving" operation. Baby Melanie, her mother and a family nurse were flown to Birmingham, Alabama and the surgery was performed on Friday,
August 14. Today, some 12 days later, the “life saving” operation wasn’t enough. The damage and stress to the heart and lungs had already been done prior to the surgery.
School just started in the state of NC. Many children, preparing for school for the first time, had medical check-ups, received immunizations to prevent illnesses, went shopping for new clothes, a pair of new tennis shoes and many school supplies. We in The United States of America are blessed more than we realize or acknowledge. We just tend to take it all for granted. We have been blessed to be a blessing…yet how many of us wake up on a regular basis with that mentality? How many of us wake to ponder, “How can I be a blessing today?” Most of us wake up looking to BE blessed!
There are “Melanie”s all over the world. “Melanie”s, who are going without a diagnosis; needing a miracle to sustain their life. As a mother of 3 daughters, I simply cannot imagine the helplessness of these parents raising their children in third world nations.
I don’t begin to understand why God sustained Melanie’s life for four months (beating all the odds with this length of time), brought her to the US for a sponsored “life saving” operation, (AGAIN, beating all odds of getting sponsored) to then die 12 days later. Today, I am broken…HOWEVER…
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body.So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
-2 Corinthians 4:7-18-
…may it be so!
Blessings…
Sarah
