Patricia Adrianzén de Vergara - I didn´t ask to be gold

(Psalm 138:7)

I gently laid her in her crib. She was finally asleep. We were both exhausted. I sat next to her and watched her: so tiny, so weak, so helpless. Why, God? Didn’t they tell us she was already healthy? What’s wrong with her now? Why doesn’t her fever go down? I looked at the children’s decorations on the walls, trying to hold back my tears, and I felt very lonely. My family was far away. Back home, whenever my son got sick, they used to come. I felt so safe. But here, my husband would take a long time to come back from church. I was afraid of the fever. “I am so lonely, my daughter! But I will take care of you. I will not move from your side.” From time to time I touched her forehead. The fever would not go away. I prayed—yes, I prayed.

The doorbell rang. A frail woman was at the door: the missionary who was part of our pastoral team. She’d arrived a few months after us. She had looked for me at the church, because I was supposed to be there that day. When she didn’t find me, she came home to see what was going on. She brought us some biscuits she’d made for us. Wasn’t God telling me that I was not alone? I showed her into the baby’s room. We sat and chatted very quietly so as not to wake her up.

“How is she? Is she very bad?”

“She has a high fever.”

“What does the doctor say?”

“That there’s nothing to justify the fever. He just found her throat a little red”.

“Nothing else?”

I stopped crying. “Nothing else,” I said.

“Strange, isn’t it? In Lima this didn’t happen to you.”

I pretended to be strong. “No, it didn’t happen to me.”

Her understanding, her sympathy, her affection, the biscuits she’d made for me that day, her voice trying to cheer me up, and her arms were precisely what I needed to cry and unburden myself. With this visit God was telling me, “Come on, daughter, cry. Let it out. Express what you feel—your doubts, your fears.”

But I did not cry. I pretended to be strong. I had wiped away the tears that were already flowing before I opened the door, so I kept that attitude. My daughter had been sick for a year without a break. I needed to cry, but I let my friend go.

Alone again, I stroked my five-month pregnant belly and became fearful again. I gave Nataly a new dose of antipyretic. She vomited it up. I felt alone again.

My husband arrived in the evening after a hard day’s work. I was sure he had many concerns. But he looked at me, was surprised by my woeful expression, and said: “Why that face”?

Those words were enough to make me feel very lonely again. I had been waiting for him to cry with him and my emotional state made me feel misunderstood. I ran to the bedroom, locked myself in, and wept. I cried out loud everything I hadn’t cried in a year of constant stress and illness. I sobbed telling God that I didn’t understand why He didn’t give us some rest, why we had no victory over the disease, why my baby had to keep suffering, why He didn’t seem to answer us, why we had to go to the doctor when He had so much power. I cried about my doubts: wasn’t it your will that we come here?

I kept crying. My husband knocked on the bedroom door and begged me to calm down. He feared crying so much would hurt me, as I was pregnant. I wanted to keep crying, but I immediately obeyed him when he mentioned the baby I was expecting. After all, a mother always thinks first of the welfare of her children; I did not want for anything in the world to harm the child I was carrying in my womb.

I prayed more calmly. It had been good to pour my heart out before God. My faith did not have to fail. I had to get up and trust in Him. He did not promise that everything would be easy. Besides, He had never abandoned us; He had always strengthened us, otherwise, how did we get here? I prayed with a different attitude and went out to meet my husband. We talked. He had believed that his wife was also made of “stainless steel.” That is why he had spoken to me as he did. It was good for him to discover, and I reiterated it to him, that she was flesh and blood.

9

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.

(Proverbs 17:17)

Sometimes crying is unavoidable. If you imagine your baby’s sick lungs, your tears can overflow in an avalanche. But I contained it. The doctor said she was not contagious, yet I avoid taking her to the cradle room at church, as a precaution.

The fragile woman watches me. We spoke a few minutes ago, and she agreed with me. My baby could put toys in her mouth and then another child could do the same—better to avoid any possibility of contagion. But my baby is restless. She put aside the toys I brought for her. I don’t know what to do with her; she is interrupting the service. The fragile woman approaches. She always wants to help me, and now I really have to make an effort to hold back my tears. Tenderly and resolutely, she offers me her child’s toys so that my little girl can calm down. My baby can do whatever she wants with the toys, even put them in her mouth. I understand that this is the quietest way my friend can tell me that she loves me, and dispel the fog of worry and grief.

10

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

(Philippians 4:6-7)

“Your children are not in your hands, nor in the devil’s hands, but in God’s hands.”

These were our pastor’s words on the phone, consoling my husband, who’d shared the ups and downs we were going through. And they were words I repeated over and over again, in my anguished prayers, during those 15 minutes that the doctor took to come down and the nurse did not heed my words. It was obvious that the medicine had shocked my five-year-old son. His body itched all over, and he seemed about to faint. His eyes rolled back. He was desperate with the itchy, burning sensation of his skin. The nurse examined him. As she found no welts or visible swelling, she decided to wait for the doctor to finish his rounds on the hospital floor. I struggled I don’t know how many minutes in prayer, reminding God that my son was in his hands, and repeating it to myself.

We had admitted Rogercito to the emergency room that day for uncontrollable vomiting that had been going on for two days. He could not even stomach water. He threw everything up; not even injections had any effect. As it was clear that he was likely to become dehydrated, we decided to take him to the hospital and ask for an intravenous drip to be administered at the same time that tests were done to diagnose his illness. My son was terrified. It was his first experience in a hospital. I confess that I was terrified too. The clinical examination and his symptoms led the doctor to diagnose typhoid and hepatitis, but he tested negative for these diseases. Everything seemed to indicate that he had them, but in fact he did not. So, what was the origin of this severe vomiting? The doctor ordered an injection; then he went out. That’s when the reaction occurred. I knew perfectly well how to recognize an allergic reaction because both my father and I are allergic. I am sure that night God saved my son’s life and prolonged it. I cannot say how long it took before the doctor finally returned from his rounds. He immediately ordered an injection of the antidote to counter the allergic reaction.

Rogercito fell asleep. I watched his breathing carefully, not wanting to miss a single breath. He was alive. He was alive! He was not gone. Thank God. He was very sick, but alive. I wanted to cry.