Read With Us - Chapter 10

Join us as we continue to read "In Faithfulness, He Afflicted Me" by: Lynnette Kraft

I had to smile a little when I read about Lynnette's exerience with the apple juice. Under MUCH different circumstances, I just had a similar experience this weekend. Like a bone head, I forgot my son's frozen breast milk bags when we traveled back home (2 hrs. south) for a birthday party on Saturday. My only option was to try whole milk. I was so nervous that he wouldn't take it and I would be left with an irrate, hungry little boy. But to my utter amazement, Jackson took the 2 bottles that day like he had no idea there was anything different. I was so thankful and very surprised. Never tried the goat's milk ;)

While Lynnette relived her feelings of handing Anna over to the nurses as they encountered open heart surgery, a few things weighed on my heart. I know that handing your child over for a very risky surgery would be devastatingly difficult, but it would be 10 folds when your child was as old as Anna was. She knew who her parents were, she knew that she did NOT know this nurse and she knew she was being taken away from her family. She had fear at this age. I can not imagine seeing my child reaching for me, cry for me .... and having no idea if I would ever see that child alive again. It's one thing to bring your child in who is physically showing signs of needing serious medical intervention. But it's another to have no evident signs of there being an issue. Certainly, the Kraft's knew that Anna's heart needed this operation - but at that point in time, she was a happy normal 9 month old baby girl.

As a mother I can say the hardest thing I could imagine, would be seeing your child in pain. Especially when you as their parents are helpless. It's a gut wrenching feeling when you think of not being able to take their pain away. Lynnette discussed that even though she was hurting because Anna was struggling with her discomfort, she knew this also meant that Anna was responding and getting better. There would be good things to come, Anna just needed to wait it out. Do you believe that the contact Anna had with her parents helped her healing?
Absolutely! The connection between parents and their children can be compared to the relationship between Christ and all of this children (on my levels). We feel healed when we spend time talking to God and praying, feeling His presence. There's no doubt that Anna was effected positively by having her mom and dad there to talk to her and hold her.

I have compassion for the children who were left at home. How difficult that must have been for them to be so distant from their parents. The older ones may have understood more than the younger ones, but that is such a hard position to be in.

I am so glad to see that the medical team located the problem within Anna's heart and were able to make her strong again. God had many things planned for this sweet girl, and it wasn't her time to be called home.