There is much to be said about the first 4 chapters of Joshua and so much I've learned. I've fallen in love with the story of Rahab and applied first hand what crossing my Jordan has signified at different times. In this chapter God commands them to carry 12 stones (representing the 12 tribes) over the Jordan with them. When asked what these stones meant, they were told, "In the future when your desendants ask their fathers, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them, 'Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground. For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over..'" (Joshua 4:21-23).
With such a huge event taking place after everything these people had been through, instead of rushing into the promised land, God has them stop and build this memorial reminding them of where they had come from, what they had been through, and who had led them there. I imagine the Israelites were ecstatic crossing that miraculously dried up river! 40,000 people walking on dry ground! Even with the Israelites God knew the people needed to shift their focus back on Him and take time to firmly remember these stories for generations to come.
During different trials in my life I've often built memorials but they haven't always been in a good way. Sometimes I memorialize the pain over the victory and the wilderness over the crossing. Those memorials aren't the legacy I want to leave my children. I want to boldly wear my battle scars and recount victories. What I once was, I am not now. I am a new person. The one who died once for me has given me a new name......Daughter of the King. That's the stone I want to carry and set on dry ground for my children and my children's children.
I want to remember my healed wounds as battle scars, not blemishes and I immediately thought of one of my tiniest NICU patients.
I was working in a smaller NICU, we didn't routinely care for what are called "micro-preemies" which weigh less than 1,000 grams (about 2.2 pounds). We didn't have the equipment or technology to sustain them at this hospital.
It was about 4 in the afternoon on a Friday. Management and the doctors had all gone home, antcipating a calm end to the 12 hour day shift. A mother was rushed in, unexpectedly in preterm labor, just shy of 24 weeks gestation. Phone calls were made to get the appropriate people in their places but in a matter of minutes a very, very premature, extrememly small baby was placed on the warmer in front of me. There was no respiratory effort and only the faintest of hearbeats that lasted seconds between failing attempts to circulate his body. His skin was transparent, his color blue. Mentally at that moment I knew whether right now or a few days later, this baby was not going to make it. The parents were screaming in the background.
The hope I lacked didn't matter, I had a job to do. I began chest compressions over his tiny heart with two fingers as the respiratory therapist fought to oxygenate his undeveloped lungs. Instances like that I hated my job. What quality of life are we even fighting for? Please, please don't let this baby die right here in front of me with these screams in the background. I was almost mechanical in what I was doing but I couldn't supress my emotions with the intensity so high and I felt a lone tear roll down each cheek. I knew what to do and I knew how to do it well. The therapist and I worked together like a well oiled machine and somehow stabalized the baby enough to take him to the NICU.
It felt like forever but finally the doctor arrived. The infant was stable on a respirator, his heart beating normally. Upon examination of the baby the doctor jokingly said whoever did CPR on this baby needs to trim their nails. I looked at his chest and there was a small indention on his now pink skin, perfectly shaped like a finger nail, directly over his heart. I don't have long nails but it doesn't take much to tear skin so thin. I felt guilty but then again, he was alive for today. The baby was transferred that evening to a higher level NICU that could properly care for him. I never saw that baby or his parents again.
One day, months later, they came to visit the NICU. In their arms was a thriving, pudgy baby boy. The parents were beaming. No screams, all smiles. They lifted his little shirt and showed me a tiny scar my fingernail left over his heart and said, "We will always remember how forunate we are to have him and can't wait to tell him the story of this scar when he's older."
I was stunned, frozen in amazement. Here was this healthy baby I mentally dismissed several months prior.
Their road with him had been long and difficult. Lots of treatments, on and off the ventilator many times, medications, therapists, infections and feeding issues.......all behind them. They remembered the victory of his scar, not just the trial. They looked at it with thanks and hope, not questions of "Why us?".
I want to wear my scars like that.
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