Sometimes life throws us curveballs… a sudden unexpected turn of events that can completely turn our peaceful world upside down. Ash-Lee is a new mom who was hit with one of these unexpected events when her son Silas made his entrance into the world. It wasn’t what she expected but still God was with them in the midst of their pain and carried them through.
Below Ash-Lee shares the events in her own words. We hope her story inspires you to hold on a keep trusting in the midst of life’s most painful situations. Here’s her story….
“Your son is really sick, he’s going to McMaster”. These were the words that made our world stop spinning.
February 23, 2018, it was a crisp wintery night like every other night in the dead of a Canadian winter, we were planning to go to our friends house when something out of the ordinary happened. I started having waves of cramps in and out, in and out and it was then I thought, this must be it. I was 40 + 5 days pregnant and my husband and I were anxiously awaiting the moment we would greet our son.
As a family we had spent time fasting, praying and believing for a smooth labour and delivery. I was actually very excited for labour because of the time invested in preparing for the marathon I knew was ahead. When the cramping became increasingly intense I called my husband home from work and so began the journey of bringing our son into the world. While certainly uncomfortable there was an incredible peace over our entire labour, it was as if God himself was resting on us the entire time.
So what went wrong?
When it came to delivery, we welcomed our son Silas into the world and a paediatrician took our baby boy away. I wasn’t sure what was happening, all we knew was that we had what they call a shoulder dystocia- and this can be very stressful for everyone involved as the physician has to make a quick decision as the infant is at risk for brain damage. Our incredible team was able to get our baby out before any of that happened. I remember feeling so proud that we did it, we actually gave birth to our son, I didn’t clue in to that fact that something was seriously wrong. The only thing I remember is the paediatrician shaking his head when my midwife asked if I could hold him for a second.
They wheeled Silas away, and we were left confused. When we saw our baby boy for the first time it was not what we were expecting, we couldn’t see much of his face because of all the cords and tubes but still at this point I thought he’d be back with us in the morning. It wasn’t until 24 hours later when we went to the NICU, it started to sink in that something was really wrong.
A man from behind the desk looked at us and said “ I need to talk to you “ He told us that our son was really sick and would be transferring to McMaster. He said a few big words that I didn’t understand, all I knew was that we were in the midst of a battle. How could this have happened? How could his lung be collapsed? How could he be laying there so helpless when we declared such incredible things over his life. I looked at our baby boy struggling to breath, just barely hanging on and thought Lord what went wrong?
See it was so hard because we were so confused, I wanted to be angry with God and say I trusted you! I didn’t just go into birth blindly; we fasted into his birth, praying for Gods glory to be revealed; we spent time in the Word; we prayed over my body, over Silas’ body in my womb and over us; we even made cue cards for labour! And it might be easy to say if God was good then your son would have been okay.
But can I tell you something?
God IS good, and we saw His goodness through our pain in a greater magnitude than imagined. God did not will for this to happen to Silas but Romans 8:28 says “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.” I remember my husband on the bathroom floor completely ruined but praying and declaring “ God you’re better than this BUT even if ….” and to be at a place that says God even if our son doesn’t make it you’re good, even if our dreams of doing skin to skin are delayed.. you are good; even if our perfect plan didn’t come to pass… you’re good.
That brings you to a deeper place. That night my husband and I followed the ambulance to McMaster at 3:00 am- there was a team of the best professionals waiting for Silas to arrive. And that began a journey of the most incredible trust that we’ve ever had to go through. Everything was out of our control, but we just continued to praise Him to declare that we will PRAISE YOU GOD through the unknown and through the pain.
And I could focus on the hardship but instead I’m going to tell you about how near God was. We prayed that Gods Glory would be revealed through Silas’ delivery and it was… but in way larger than we could have imagined. There were hundreds…thousands…multitudes of people praying for our son ALL over the world.
We felt carried by God’s love, we felt the weight of the prayers and we felt an incredible peace in the midst of chaos.
Prayer really changed the game for us as day by day Silas made leaps and bounds of improvements. I have to say we were in the “zone” during that time, we weren’t even praying as much as you’d think but we knew that others were standing in the gap and when we didn’t have words, there were people interceding on our behalf, on their knees praying for our son. And we saw with our own eyes God respond to those prayers, we saw Him move in the hearts of our family and our friends and we watched peoples faith all over the world begin to rise up. Each day in the NICU felt like a thousand years but three weeks later we were able to bring our baby boy home and now almost 4 months later he is completely healed!
I need you to know that you may think your prayers for others are something nice to do, and a way to tell them you’re thinking about them BUT they’re so much more than that, as you pray on the behalf of those around you, you actually shift things in the spiritual realm, strongholds actually break and chains actually fall off.
While Paul and Silas were in prison, Acts 16:25-26 says “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. They made a decision to praise and pray to God regardless of their present circumstance and not only did their chains fall off but the chains of ALL the prisoners came off. God hears you and He cares, so don’t ever think your prayers are just “nice” they’re powerful and they make a difference in the lives of people around you.