Four years old!

This week marked a very special birthday for our little Emily, and I thought I’d take some time to recount God’s faithfulness and goodness to the Mock family these last four years. Looking at Emily today you would never know that she had such a rough start to her life. You see, Emily was born at 30 weeks, 10 weeks premature. She was only 2 pounds and 11 ounces when she was born. She was little more than skin and bones.

Her first nine weeks were spent in the neonatal intensive care unit both here in Cairns and in Townsville. The hospital soon became our second home. I took trips to the hospital two and even sometimes three times a day. It was with great joy that we brought her home in late May. But we weren’t home for long. One night after coming home from church, I went to get Emily out of her car seat and she wasn’t breathing. By the time the ambulance had arrived she had started breathing again. We were rushed to the hospital where we spent the night and they let us go home the next day thinking it was just a one off thing. However, throughout the next several weeks, Emily stopped breathing on us sixteen times. I performed CPR on her every time. The doctors told us it was breath holding spells and as long as she turned blue it would be okay. That certainly wasn’t much comfort for parents who had to endure watching their little baby not breathing. I took detailed notes of every episode and did extensive research trying to find some answers.  Finally one day while waiting for a routine doctor’s appointment, Emily stopped breathing again and the doctor was able to see firsthand what was happening and very quickly started to panic as he saw what we were dealing with day in and day out. We were flown down to Brisbane the very next day where Emily then spent the next two months in the intensive care unit at the Royal Children’s Hospital. To spare you from all the intricate details, Emily ended up having major heart surgery when she was four months old. In all that time in the ICU, I was able to hold my baby girl two times. When she went in for surgery, the surgeon gave us very little hope that Emily would survive the surgery or that he would even be able to fix the problem. Praise be to God, she did survive and she has not had one problem since that surgery. Two weeks later, we were back home in Cairns. She was attached to feeding tubes and oxygen for quite some time after that as she gained strength and learned to feed again.

As I think back on that time now, I cannot help but cry thinking of how abundant God’s grace was to us. I came to know His goodness and faithfulness in my life in a way that I never would have had I not gone through that trial. Yes, there were many days when we just wished for it to all be over, regardless of the outcome, but we knew God had something very important to teach us. I marvel at His sovereign goodness. Emily was such a rare case, certainly not one written up in the textbooks. The doctors had many consultations regarding Emily. What a comfort it was knowing that Emily’s little life was not resting solely in the hands of physicians. We knew the Great Physician who knew exactly what Emily needed and we could trust and rest in Him. We were far away from home in a strange city living at the Ronald McDonald house for two months, and there were times when we were so low and discouraged that it was difficult to even pray yet we knew there were people uplifting us in prayer all over the world. There is no need for me to ever doubt God’s goodness – I have a precious little girl who is a reminder every day!

Treasures to Share

Feminine Appeal is one of the best books I have found written on the feminine virtues as described in Titus 2.  Carolyn Mahaney deals very practically and biblically with the responsibilities we are privileged to bear as Christian women, wives and mothers.   It is filled with great encouragement and exhortation to fulfill our God-given roles to our upmost.

There is a series of messages that Carolyn taught at a ladies’ conference on Titus 2 that I have listened to and highly recommend for you to take the time to listen to as well.  They can be downloaded here free of charge.

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