"Behold, Children Are a Gift of
the Lord"
by Maryella Vause
"Behold, Children Are a Gift of
the Lord"
by Maryella Vause
In mid-December, a Texas Blue Norther
swept into the Hill
Country
west of Austin. Temperatures
dropped twenty degrees in twenty
minutes.
As my husband and I drove over
the back roads, across cattle
guards, to
a small farm house, an icy rain
began to fall. My hands and my
heart
were cold. I was mad at God
and mad at my husband.
Mad at God!--wasn't He supposed
to be in charge? We were on
our way
to attend a birth–a birth that
seemed far less than a blessing to
me.
Doesn't God's word say that children
are a blessing, a heritage, a
gift? How could He
allow this to happen?
"Why would You send
a child into a situation like this?" I
ranted in
my heart, more than prayed.
The young woman was not even
married, hardly more than a child
herself. She lay in a drafty
back bedroom of the dilapidated farm
house, writhing in pain with each
contraction of her labor. I
helped
her get into a better position,
began coaching her to relax and
focus on
her breathing rather than on her pain.
"How old
are you?" I asked between contractions in an effort
to
establish some rapport with her.
"I turned
seventeen last month, ma'am," she said trying to
smile
through her fear and pain.
One of
the local boys, who dropped out of high school to take
up
truck driving as a cover for drug
running, brought this pathetic
girl
back from California on one of
his "runs." When she was well
along in
her pregnancy, he dumped
her at his middle-aged mother's little
shack
of a house here in rural Texas.
His mother had called in the
middle of the night, "Doctor, please
come. This girl's in labor
and she's having a bad time. You've
GOT to
help her."
My
husband was tired. As the only physician in our part of
the
county, he was putting in sixty
to eighty hours a week. "It's not
enough to really help these people,"
he would sigh.
I was against it. "Don't
go," I pleaded. "You said that we
would do
these home births only at the Lord's
direction. Surely, He's not
directing this!"
How on
earth did we get into such a situation? Our local
hospital,
with its fifteen beds had served
the community well, but was
closed now
under a sea of federal red tape.
Without a hospital, many of our
patients were left with either
untrained, granny-mid-wives or
expensive
obstetrical care at distant hospitals.
When we
were first asked to attend a home birth, I thought my
husband would "just say no" and
that would be the end of it.
Instead,
he said, "We'll pray about it."
I was shocked. We
had never considered delivering
babies at home. It was
unthinkable!
With our training and experience,
we knew the possible
complications,
the worse scenarios; not to mention
the legal aspects, nor the
outright
scorn and opposition of peers.
We prayed. God gave each of us
peace in
our hearts that we were to deliver
a child for one of our regular
patients. It was a beautiful
birth, a deeply meaningful, blessed
experience for each of us.
It was a joy to be a part of the
welcome of
a baby into the arms of a loving
family. By the time that call
came in
the middle of the night,
we were known as the doctor and nurse
who
would deliver babies at home.
But now
this! I was mad at my husband, yet I admired his
faith and
courage, his
willingness to help when no one
else would. Maybe his experience
as a
medical commander in Vietnam during
the Tet Offensive had given
him the
courage required to think of
others and not of the risks to
himself.
When he
answered the phone that night, I thought he would
say,
"Call the EMS and have them take
her into the city." Instead, I
heard
him saying, "We'll be right over."
"Why are
we doing this?" I asked as I was getting dressed.
"Did
you even pray about it?"
"I prayed.
That poor old woman is trying to deliver the girl
by
herself. God wants me to
go. You don't have to come if you don't
want
to."
When we
arrived at the shabby little house, the macho
boyfriend was
swaggering around in the front room.
He was in his early
twenties,
wearing a cowboy hat and boots,
and grinning from under a two-day
stubble of beard.
"Hey, Doc, glad you
could make it. MY BOY's about to be born,"
he
bragged.
We heard the girl scream. The young man turned pale.
"I'll go
into town now and tell my buddies. This is great!"
He
reached for his faded blue jacket.
My husband
put his hand on the young man's shoulder and said
firmly, "You can't leave now.
You've got to help us get the baby
here."
"No, way,
Doc! I can't do that. I'm going down to the café
and
you call me when the baby gets
here. Having babies is women's
work.
I'll set off some fire crackers
when my son gets born." He
started for
the door.
"We don't
have a hospital here. Without those nice delivery
tables, YOU'VE got to be the one
to hold up her shoulders and be
our
birthing bed. You're strong.
You can do it!"
As I set up the bed and the
room to receive the child, my husband
showed the inexperienced, truck-driving
cowboy how to support the
mother's head and shoulders during
the birth.
So into this mess, God was sending a child!
We
coached and encouraged the mother as she became focused
and
intent on delivering her child.
We worked together, sweated and
prayed. Within two hours,
the little baby girl slipped into my
husband's strong, gentle hands.
When he placed the wet little one
on
her mother's breasts, I looked
over at the young father who was
tired
from the effort of holding up his
girlfriend's shoulders. Tears
were
running down his checks.
"Ain't it a miracle, Doc?"
"Yes, every birth is a miracle! Each one is special."
"I've got
to go out and shoot some firecrackers. My buddies
better
hear that MY GIRL is born!"
Not only
did that young man run out and shoot firecrackers,
he quit
drug running! He went into legitimate
trucking. He took his young
woman, who was brought up Catholic,
down to the local Catholic
Church to
visit the priest and share with him the miracle of new life.
Saint Ferdinand's
Catholic Church beside the Blanco river,
never
saw a sweeter couple take their
vows. She with wide-eyed wonder
and he
with fatherly pride stepped into
a new chapter of their lives.
Heavenly
light shown through the stained
glass windows on the nativity
scene as
the ancient, yet timely, words
were read.
Husband and wife set
up housekeeping in their own little home.
Since
that day, they have had two more
children. He has become one of
the
more stable, upstanding members
of the community. He waves and
grins as
his truck meets our car along the
highway. She smiles sweetly
when we
meet at the grocery store.
Often, she tells me how well the
children
are doing in school. Sometimes,
she shows me the latest snapshots
or I
notice one of the children's names
on the Honor Roll in the local
paper.
When I
see this family in the town, I remember that cold,
bitter
night many Christmases ago and
ponder that "His ways are not our
ways."
It still amazes me that God would
entrust the care of a baby to
us.
Yet, He even placed His only son
as a helpless infant into the
hands of
a teenage girl.
I would
never send a child into such circumstances. God in
His
wisdom and mercy did!
"Behold, children are a gift of the Lord!"
--
Maryella
<>< Jesus is the love we
share. ><>
Tree of Life: http://www.moment.net/~blanlib/maryella
