This Is My Child

This Is My Child

The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. Romans 8:11

When Bobby arrived in the ER, his right pupil was blown, he had a skull fracture, and brain tissue leaked from a laceration on his scalp. I’d never known anyone to survive a thirty-foot fall onto a concrete floor, so my first thought wasn’t about saving his life—it was about how I would tell his parents that their son was gone.

Our job was to keep Bobby alive until air transport arrived. I immediately began working on his obstructed airway, and as I worked, I prayed silently, Please, God. Help us help him!

Amid the hum of the ER, I heard the barest trace of a voice say, “This is my child.”

For the next twenty-three minutes, as we worked to keep Bobby alive, I heard the whisper over and over again: “This is my child.”

Suddenly, there was a commotion in the waiting room as Bobby’s parents arrived. “Where’s my child?” I heard his mother cry. “Is he dead?”

As the nurses tried to calm her down, I was struck by the similarity of her words—“Where is my child?”—with what I’d been hearing: “This is my child.”

By God’s grace, Bobby survived. The skull fracture had saved his life by enlarging the available space for his brain to swell.

Several weeks later, I visited Bobby at the rehab center, and he greeted me with a left-handed high five. His right arm wasn’t functioning as well, but he was working hard in rehab and continuing to make progress. I told him about the whisper I’d heard and its similarity to his mother’s words when she had arrived.

“God saved you for a purpose, Bobby, and I look forward to seeing what it is.”

Bobby eventually returned to work. Soon he fell in love with a young woman, and they moved out West after they got married. A year and a half later, Bobby’s parents stopped by with a photo of their new grandson. On the back, Bobby had written, “This is my child.”^a

TODAY’S RX

You are a child of God and God always cares for his children. Make a list of how he has cared for you.

I am your child, Lord. And you are my Father. I will proudly proclaim that as long as I have breath.