Becoming One (Lisa)

My daughter helped me find a HOLY MOMENT in the hospital recently. It started with a dramatic drive to the hospital. Racing heart, needing oxygen, spiked high fever, on phone nonstop with her doctors, the ER was ready and waiting for her arrival. We spent 18 hours with her in the ER before they diagnosed her to be in sepsis. A CAT scan revealed air pockets in the intestinal walls that could be a perforation. A surgeon was called in to consult. We were told fixing perforations of intestines is a tricky business. Our daughter is in long term home hospice. We knew the answer we would have to give if they said she needed surgery. This could be it. The beginning of the end. Is this it? The tears that flow. The stomach lurches. The praying that has no beginning or end. But… God is so good! Our daughter was sent home to continue her recovery with us, in her own bed. This is what hospice affords us.

Sometimes HOLY MOMENTS come to us in an instant, in a thought… My ​holy moment​ came during this hospital stay. Day 2 and all the IV fluids were spilling into her tissues making her so very swollen – face like a balloon, arms like Popeye, belly huge and pushing up into her lungs, needing ever higher ventilator settings to breathe. The doctors came in to discuss her condition with me. As I stood at the foot of her bed rubbing her legs, they asked me, “How do you think she is doing?” I responded, “I think I’m hurting lying on my right side and I need to be turned.” I was going to continue how I needed Lasix, how I needed to get more upright, I needed to get up and out of this bed…. but I stopped realizing I was talking in first person. I was speaking as if she was me. I had climbed inside her body becoming one with her. I felt every pain she felt. To the doctors, I laughed and cried in the moment at my mistake but in truth, I stood there in awe at my complete surrender to Claire. HOLY MOMENT.

Is this what it feels like to be one with Him? I thought, ‘OOOOH! This is what Jesus meant! This is what the promise of the Holy Spirit alive in us feels like! This is how Jesus feels about me! Jesus feels one with me RIGHT NOW! He feels my every pain. He speaks in first person about me! We are one! He sent me the Holy Spirit to actually BE IN ME at all times.

I wonder how much my daughter is aware of my “oneness” presence in her especially when she is hurting. I hope she does and I pray we both know the “oneness” of Jesus’ through the Holy Spirit in just the same way. She is not alone in this moment and neither am I. Like nesting dolls, I hold my precious daughter and Jesus holds me, holding her. This is what I am working on this Easter, to become alive, awake, and aware of Jesus within me, holding me from the inside out. Peace and BIG Joy! Lisa