A Christmas Miracle

by Richard Edfeldt

Ten years ago today, we received the call that Jacob was to be the beneficiary of a new heart. On this day in 2004, he underwent his first heart transplant.

Karen and I received the call at 4:00am while we were in the catacombs of Egleston hospital where there were some sleeping rooms for parents. The nurse called to gleefully announce to us that a heart had been located. I figured it was going to be awhile before the donor heart would make its way to the hospital and I knew it would be a long day of surgery so I jumped into the shower to wake me up and to get ready for what lay ahead.  About 20 minutes later, Jacob’s nurse called and frantically said, “Where are y’all?  They’re about to take Jacob away for prepping!” We rushed up to the floor, tying shoes in the elevator, to get the chance to see Jacob and tell him we loved him (and praying it wouldn’t be for the last time). Thankfully, we made it in time.

The rest of the day was a whirlwind of updates and activity around us as the waiting room grew crowded with family and church friends praying for a Christmas miracle. And it came … as you are aware, Jacob successfully received his new heart and made it home a week later. A miracle.

Throughout Jacob’s life, we have been reminded again and again that he was a miracle.

The doctors told us that Jacob’s congenital heart defect was 100% fatal without medical intervention. God sent us to the right doctors and hospitals that were used to bring us this miracle baby.

With each open heart surgery that was performed by Dr. Bill Norwood at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and his entire team of nurses and doctors that served Jacob and Karen and I so well, we thanked God for the miracle of continued life for our son.

With each check up and each time he got sick and with each successful recovery and report, we reveled in the miracle we held in our arms.

And with the success of the first transplant (and the second one as well), we once again thanked God for His grace in giving us this miracle.  But we always acknowledged that with advent of our miracle, another family’s life was shattered and their broken miracle was scattered across the floor.

And then on June 14, 2009, our last miracle didn’t happen.

I can hear many of you now saying, “Come on, Richard, you’re a minister. Surely, you understand how this works.” Honestly, I don’t. I’ve read and I’ve studied books about God’s sovereignty and about the power of prayer.  I can give you the ‘book’ answers.  But as a grieving parent, those ‘book’ answers ring hollow. I can buck up my spirituality and quote Matthew 5:45, “it rains on the just and unjust”, but as a parent I long to have my child back with me. 

And I can even grasp the concept that my Jacob is no longer suffering and is in the presence of God with a perfect body … and that does give me peace …. But there are many times, as a parent, my greater wish is to have him around to trade jokes with and to ask about his day.

So, as I have said on numerous occasions, on days like today and other times throughout the year, it is such a quandary of emotions for a grieving parent (or spouse) to deal with as to how to survive the day, especially at Christmas time.

For example, later today Ben and Beth will be arriving with our two grandchildren, Tucker and Libby.  We love them. We adore them. They will be bringing such joy and Christmas excitement with them. We have planned some great memories to create with them.  Then Katie and Andy will arrive on Christmas Eve and we will have “the family” with us on Christmas. That’s every parent’s Christmas dream, to have their family with them.   But it always gnaws on our heart that Jacob will be forever missing as part of our family and we will be missing him and wishing that one more miracle could have happened.  There is such sorrow mingled with such joy.

So as a minister, I know the ‘book’ answers. But as a parent, I’m standing next to the father in Mark 9:24, “I do believe, help my unbelief.” I know that God himself has experienced the loss of a son.  And Jesus, in his earthly body, experienced loss and he also felt the lack of understanding of a plan – but in that lacking still trusted in God’s love and plan. I know God loves me and wants the best for me. But often, in the pain of grief, I feel like I’m living what C.S. Lewis described when, in his pain, went to God and only heard the slamming and bolting of the door and then only silence as he stood outside alone. It’s like I’ve developed a type of spiritual bi-polar disorder. One minute I’m bathed in the presence and love of God and then in the next I feel abandoned.

So for now, even when I don’t see how this is ‘best’ for me and my family, we must trust Him as we journey through this forest of loss, seeking those patches of light that pierce through the darkness of the trees until we experience the final miracle of eternal life in the presence of God and re-united with Jacob and a host of other loved ones.  And that’s what the miracle child of Christmas has brought to us.

Merry Christmas to all!

The family minus one