The other night for FHE, I was running short on time so I found a little lesson on the miracles Christ performed, and ran with it. The kids are learning all about miracles this month in primary so they had a lot of input and we had a great discussion going. At the end of the lesson, there was a video on miracles, so I thought 'sure, why not?' I didn't watch it before I showed the kids since I didn't have that much time and that's something I'll never do again.
The video was about a mother who birthed premature twins at 27 weeks. One twin was okay, but the other twin didn't live. The doctor told her the baby had passed and the mother was devastated. She decided she wanted to hold him on her chest which she did for 2 hours. Miraculously, this little twin started breathing and then he opened his eyes. The mother put a little breast milk on her finger and put it in his mouth and he started sucking it. Needless to say, the doctors were astounded and this little family was overjoyed to have their little baby back. I clenched my teeth as I tried to hold back my tears and acted like this was the plan all along.
As we all sat there watching this with our eyeballs glued on it, Kendyl quietly said, "Mom, I wished you could've done that."
If she only knew how badly I wished I could've done that too. It hurt me so bad to hear that, but I know she wasn't doing it to hurt me, she was telling me how much she missed him in her own way. If only all of those kids knew how much it hurt me to let Noah go. If someone would've said to run and never stop running and you'll get Noah back, I would've. If someone would've said we'd need to pay a million dollars and then he'd come back, we would've. If someone would've said, they'd need to break every bone in my body to get Noah back, I would've in a heartbeat. So would the kids.
After the video was over, our whole family had sick stomachs. Everyone was quiet. I looked around at my sweet kids who had just been through hell and back losing their little brother, and who had come so far, and now I'm wondering if I had just ruined all of their progress they had made. I couldn't even say anything.
My mom asked me the other day if this still consumes me. I said not only does it consume me, it consumes my every thought, my every breath, my every step, my everything. Even when I'm talking to someone acting normal and even laughing, I'm still thinking about it. And I know it will for the rest of my life but it's going to evolve into different feelings and thoughts. I can remember thinking 'how will I ever live with myself for allowing this to happen'. The secret is, you can't live with only yourself; the secret is you can't live without Jesus Christ now. Every day, every second, every minute. He's with me. He's with you. So closely than we ever knew.
So, when I went to tuck Kendyl in to bed, we looked at each other and I said, "Kendyl, what have we learned through this last year about why Noah was taken back to our Heavenly Father? "
She said, "We know it was his plan to be here for 5 weeks to get his body and then go back to heaven."
"Right. Obviously, that little twin needed to come to earth. There's nothing anyone can explain about it. We just have to trust God. Do you have faith that that's true?"
With a smile, she said, "Yes." We hugged and shed a few tears.
I'm grateful for this experience that Kendyl's faith grew and her testimony was strengthened from our FHE fail - this disastrous, mistaken, spiritual, and meant-to-be FHE fail.
