Show me Your ways, O Lord
Whether we are recent converts or long-time believers of the Lord, we can sometimes have incorrect preconceptions about faith, church, or God’s will. However, just as a father chastises his child, who He loves, God also corrects us to show us the right paths.
Show me Your ways, O LORD;
Teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
On You I wait all the day.
Remember, O LORD, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses,
For they are from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions;
According to Your mercy remember me,
For Your goodness' sake, O LORD.
Good and upright is the LORD;
Therefore He teaches sinners in the way.
The humble He guides in justice,
And the humble He teaches His way.
All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth,
To such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.
For Your name's sake, O LORD,
Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.
(Ps. 25:4-11)
This psalm of David comes to my mind when I reflect on my family’s journey of faith over the past few years. Just as David noted, God indeed leads and corrects with the Truth. His tender mercies and lovingkindness are unending. On this journey, I have learned much about faith and God’s will.
Congenital heart defect diagnosis
Before my younger daughter’s birth, we were told by the doctor that, based on the ultrasound images, our daughter would likely be a small baby. Aside from this, everything else about her seemed normal. On July 22, 2017, we were overjoyed to receive our baby daughter into the world.
At the one-month check-up, our family doctor mentioned to us that she had heard a strange murmur coming from our daughter’s heart. While this was not uncommon, she referred us to a pediatric cardiologist for a precautionary check. The results from the pediatric cardiologist’s ultrasound test were inconclusive, but the cardiologist suspected that our daughter might have a hole in between the upper two chambers of her heart. If this was indeed the case, there would be three possible outcomes. The two more plausible outcomes were that if the hole was small, it would heal on its own, and if the hole was larger, it may be repaired by a relatively non-invasive catheter treatment. A third, less likely possibility, was a very large hole, whereby our daughter would require a more invasive open-heart surgery.
While we were a little sad to hear this result, we also felt comforted knowing that the most likely outcomes either required no surgery, or just a small catheter treatment, which had very little risk. Open heart surgery would be the less likely, worst-case scenario.
For further confirmation of the diagnosis, the doctor referred us to a major children’s hospital for a more detailed, sedated ultrasound. This time, the ultrasound results were very clear, and the hospital diagnosed our daughter as having several pretty complicated heart defects, including atrial ventricular septal defect (AVSD)—basically two holes in her heart, pulmonary valve stenosis, and a mitral valve defect.
Needless to say, this diagnosis was surprising and difficult for us to accept. Prior to the sedated ultrasound, we thought that perhaps our daughter had one hole in her heart, and that it could be small enough to heal on its own. Even if the hole could not heal on its own, we thought that a catheter treatment, which would not have been very invasive, would have sufficed. However, we now knew that her heart had two holes, and each was quite big, so much so that open heart surgery was inevitable.
An unexpected miracle
By this time, my wife and I were shocked about the extent of our daughter’s AVSD. However, the doctor then told us that, normally, AVSD like this would have been more life threatening, and she should have had to immediately had surgery at birth. There was something amazing that may have prevented her from requiring open heart surgery immediately at birth—which would have been much more difficult and dangerous. Namely, one of the large holes should have significantly reduced her blood circulation. However, because our daughter “coincidentally” had another heart defect—pulmonary valve stenosis, the narrowing of the pulmonary valve opening—the two defects changed the pressure profile within the heart chambers, and amazingly, allowed normal levels of blood to flow to circulation. This “coincidental” result explained why our daughter’s development, weight, height, and other metrics were all normal. Her blood oxygen levels were also normal. She looked and behaved just like any other healthy baby!
We really thank God for this miracle. Somehow, God allowed her to have both defects, such that the second defect effectively canceled out the negative consequences of the AVSD! Yet, this balance of blood flow in her heart would not remain stable for a long time—it was quite delicate. Therefore, she was still required to have open heart surgery to fix the first two problems. The third, mitral valve defect, did not appear to be a problem, so the doctors were just going to leave it alone.
Open heart surgeries
Eventually, we began to feel a little better about the open-heart surgery. We spoke several times with the doctors, including the heart surgeon, at the children’s hospital where the surgery would take place. They gave us a lot of details about what would happen during the surgery, and about the risks.
On one hand, we were sad that our daughter needed open heart surgery at just 5-months of age. On the other hand, we were also satisfied with the doctors’ confidence in the surgery. The surgeon told us that he performed one of these surgeries on about a weekly basis. The probability of death was very low. The doctors understood the problems, and had a very good strategy to fix the problems. Additionally, many True Jesus Church members, throughout North America, were praying for our daughter. She was also baptized, so we felt very hopeful.
The surgery date was December 19, 2017. We brought our daughter to the hospital, and she was taken away from us, to the operating room at around 7:30 AM. We waited for 8.5 long hours. Then the surgeon came out to speak with us.
The good news was that the two holes of the AVSD were successfully repaired, and under the ultrasound that they immediately performed, the two holes were no longer there. The pulmonary valve stenosis was also successfully fixed, so it was not a narrow constriction anymore. It became a normal size valve. However, the mitral valve defect, which the doctors thought they could leave alone because it was not presenting any problems, started to leak severely.
The severe leakage was dangerous, and the doctor continued to say that he attempted to fix the mitral valve three times, but every attempt had failed. For each attempt, he had to stop our daughter’s heart, put her on the heart-lung bypass machine, open the heart, fix the valve, close and restart the heart, and conduct the ultrasound operation, to see if the fix worked. He did this three times. After the last time, he saw that the mitral valve was still leaking severely. He told us that considered trying again, but was worried that her small body would not be able to withstand another attempt—it was just too dangerous—so he stopped. After the three attempts, they brought her to the Critical Care Unit.
Seeing her in the Critical Care Unit was extremely difficult. She was still so small, and already had to endure so much. At this point, the plan was to monitor her blood oxygen levels, and allow her to recover enough to undergo another open-heart surgery.
By this time, my wife and I felt a lot of shock, sadness, and our faith was quite shaken. This certainly was not the result that we had anticipated. Since our older daughter was still at home with my parents, we left our younger daughter in the care of the nurses of the Critical Care Unit, and drove home. I remember that the drive home was very quiet, and both my wife and I wept. We had very complicated feelings. We were hopeful that this surgery would help fix our daughter’s heart problems. However, to our surprise, she was now in somewhat critical condition. We informed everyone, and asked church members to help us pray to God for His mercy.
Lessons for a Christian scientist
During the next few days, I spent a lot of time thinking about what God wanted to teach me through this situation. Before the surgery, we had prayed to God to guide the operation. However, in the back of my mind, I also felt optimistic, and somewhat confident, about the outcome of the operation, for perhaps the wrong reasons.
By profession, I am a biomedical engineering university professor, and a cross-appointed hospital scientist. Due to the nature of the research I conduct at the hospital, I am well acquainted with modern medicine, and the treatment capabilities of hospitals. I understood what the surgeon was planning to do, and it all looked like a good, scientifically-sound plan.
I understood that the heart defects were complicated, but the surgical solution appeared very feasible. I knew that the surgeon was a world-renowned pediatric heart surgeon, and the probability of death for this kind of operation was about 1%, which was very low. I also knew that we were at the best children’s hospital in Canada. Due to all of this, I lost the recognition that our lives depend completely on God and His will. Indeed, we can plan treatments and strategies, but God is the one that decides the outcome.
There may be others like me for which these important lessons also apply. We follow a scientific approach to many aspects of life, and make evidence-based decisions using probabilities. While there is nothing wrong with this approach generally, at some point in our lives we need to recognize that some situations are beyond anyone’s control; results are not predictable by prior evidence; and there is One who is much greater than all of us who has sovereignty over the events of our lives. I shared this realization with my wife, and we prayed to God for His forgiveness.
Lessons for a believer of God’s wonderful will
I also spent some time thinking about the concept of seeking God’s will. I always believed in God’s power to heal, but when I prayed, I did not know whether God was willing to heal our daughter. God’s power is undeniable, but His will was unknown to me.
We may think of King Hezekiah’s plea to God to heal him of his terminal illness, and his eventual pride and sin against God after his life was extended, as an example showing why we should not tell God to heal us according to our own wishes. I felt this way as well, so I was unsure about directly asking God for healing. However, Hezekiah’s mistake was not necessarily in asking God to remember his good works and heal him. Instead, Hezekiah’s real mistake was that, after receiving the healing, he became proud and sinned against God.
In chapter 3 of the Book of Daniel, the three friends refused to worship the king’s image, and the king threatened to put them into a fiery furnace. In response, the friends stood firm and proclaimed their belief that “our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king.” It is evident here that the friends believed in both God’s power (i.e. “able to”), as well as God’s intent (i.e. “He will”) to save them. Inspired by the words of Daniel’s three friends, my prayers transitioned from asking God to help us according to His will, to asking God to heal my daughter—believing that His will is to make her better, while acknowledging that all things are in His hand.
Recovery and discharge
After recovering in the Critical Care Unit for nine days, our daughter had her second open-heart surgery. Like the first time, this surgery also took a very long time. However, this time, the surgeon said that he was able to reduce the mitral valve leakage from severe to moderate. This meant that our daughter was no longer in any kind of immediate danger. Thank God!
She was sent back to the Critical Care Unit for about another eight days to recover, during which time she rapidly recovered, and was able to even start interacting with us a little. The doctors said that she still had leakage in her mitral valve, but that they would let her recover with it. We would then come back for frequent check-ups, and at any time, if they saw that the leakage became problematic, they would have to operate on her again. By now, we believed that God would deliver our daughter from all these troubles. In the end, she was discharged from the hospital 17 days after her first surgery. Thank God for His grace!
God’s continuing grace
Our daughter has been very healthy since the second surgery. Initially, we returned to the hospital for weekly check-ups. However, when the doctors saw that she was so healthy, they started asking us to come for monthly check-ups, then every three months, and then every six months. At the most recent check-up, the doctors said that our daughter was doing amazingly well. All the pressures in each chamber of her heart was normal, like any other child. Thank God! We now only have check-ups every nine months.
The doctors often remind us that it was possible that she might have less energy than other kids. Getting tired easily is a sign of a weak heart. Nevertheless, they encouraged us to let her play lots of sports to keep her healthy. Despite these reminders from the doctors, we often find that our daughter is somehow a lot more energetic than anyone else in our family. She is always running and jumping around, making a mess of our home, and she seems to have a difficult time sitting still.
My wife and I often talk about how these are such a great grace from God. He made our daughter extra active and energetic, to comfort us and tell us that she is going to be fine. I thank God for His grace, that He has taught me different lessons in various times of my life. My wife and I have learned so much over the past few years because of this experience. May God’s name always be glorified!
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