I mean there’s so much blessing when we obey the Lord. I mean, it’s not about understanding His ways. It’s not about trying to match everything He says. We’ll never be able to understand and match everything He says because He’s greater. We don’t have His brain, He’s God. He’s greater, so…But it’s so amazing when we just obey without trying to understand and there is so much blessing when we are obedient to God. 

I came to Christ for the Nations. I was coming for one year, and it’s been eight years and a half now. Almost six years of marriage and two little girls. That was my year. So when I came, I came in spring 2012 and like, two months later, I met my husband. Truly the Lord, I mean, He changed totally my plans. I remember my mom told me, “The Lord will surprise you because He knows you are leaving, you are giving up something that you love. It’s just gonna be for one year. But the Bible says that He will give you 100 more times. So don’t worry, He will surprise you. But we were all surprised because we never knew that coming here one year meant that I was going to stay here. 

So what I wanted to share is the…I mean, I have a lot of beautiful, I have had a lot of beautiful times with the Lord. And you know, growing up in a Christian family, in a church, is just a blessing. But I guess when things get better in your relationship with the Lord, is when you go through fire, when you go through those difficult times, it’s really when you see His hand and when you experience the power of God in your life. It’s not when you are laying in cotton and everything is so wonderful. I mean it’s when you’re going through the fire. So we got married, then a year later I got pregnant. I was going to SMU, to law school. Before I graduated, I got pregnant. So when I graduated, I was already seven months pregnant. And I got very sick with morning sickness during the pregnancy, but the entire pregnancy was very healthy. Everything was fine. Everything was perfect. And then the time came when she was born and they had to induce me because I wasn’t dialating. I wasn’t going very fast. So they induced me and everything, the baby was born, and everything was so wonderful, so far. She was born at like, 11:30pm. 

The next day in the morning, in the afternoon, I noticed that she was like choking and I was worried at that point. I told the nurse, “I see that the baby’s choking a lot, so I would like for you to take her to nursery because I’m extremely exhausted. I haven’t slept and I will be afraid to fall asleep while she’s like this.” In that moment that she came to check on me, like within five minutes, she was choking twice. Then the nurse said, “Okay, we’re gonna take her to the nursery tonight.” A nurse came back to my room at like 1am and she said, “We just want to let you know that we took the baby to the NICU because she turned blue. I mean, I was wide awake, I woke up and I ran to the NICU and she was already connected with oxygen. So I was just there; I didn’t, I couldn’t go back to bed. I stayed there in the NICU the whole morning until like 6am. I went back to my room and I was just crying. I didn’t know exactly what was happening, but I just knew in my spirit, in my heart, that something was wrong and that she wasn’t going home with us. 

So yeah, they let me go that day. I mean, I was devastated going back home without my belly and without my baby. It was like the most horrible experience. She wasn’t waking up at all. She wasn’t latching, no appetite, nothing. She stayed there in the NICU; so I pretty much for one whole week, I was just going back and forth to the hospital and the house. I just went back home just to take a shower change and then go all the way to the hospital to be with the baby. And they were doing a lot of exams and they never told me what happened. The doctors will tell me only, “We believe it is a transition because she has been in your womb and now she has to survive by herself. She’s not anymore in your womb.” And I was just thinking, I mean, I’m an attorney, I don’t know anything about medicine, but that doesn’t sound right. I mean, it’s just common sense. Otherwise every single baby that is born will have to stay at the NICU. It was a very hard, very hard week for me. 

They said they were not gonna let her go home until she can breathe without any problem by herself and until she’s eating because she wasn’t eating at all. She started eating like after three or four days, and they even had to teach me how to feed her with the bottle. I couldn’t breastfeed her because she wasn’t latching and besides that, I was extremely stressed out. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating, so I couldn’t breastfeed her. After a week, she was getting better. She didn’t need oxygen anymore and they said… but they never told me the reason. They never gave me a diagnosis. So I remember I was just super scared. I was crying and I was talking to God and I said, “I have been a good Christian. I mean, I have tried. I have served You, I…this is supposed to be a time of joy in my life, but I’m just–I’m sad, I’m depressed. I’m scared. I’m super scared about coming home with this baby. And it’s not supposed to be like this.”

I remember the day before they released the baby from the hospital–that night before going to bed–I had been crying and I had been speaking with the Lord and just asking why?! I mean this is supposed to be a time of joy and I’m feeling so scared and so sad. I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit and He said, “I gave you a perfect and whole baby.” And that was it. It’s like the peace of the Lord took over my heart and I didn’t cry anymore. I was fine. So I went to bed. Then the next day we brought her home. 

Three days later, she started doing something weird like, like a, like if she had twitch in her eye, and then making a very weird noise. I was like, I was recording her and I’m concerned because I was like, I don’t think this is normal for a newborn. I was asking different people like, “What do you think?” And everybody would tell me, “newborns do…they’re weird. They do weird stuff. Don’t worry, she’s fine.” You know, as a mom, I guess the Lord has given us that sense and I just knew that something wasn’t right. So I was recording her every time she did it, I did record her. That was through a weekend, like Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday morning, first thing in the morning, I made an appointment with the pediatrician. I said that I needed to see a doctor. Obviously they wouldn’t think twice to give you an appointment because they know the baby just got out of the NICU, so…no question they gave me an appointment right away. 

So my husband and I went to the doctor with the baby and I showed the doctor the video. He said, “I’m sorry, but I, I cannot see your baby here. You have to go to the ER, because if I’m not wrong, what she’s having, she’s having seizures.” And I’m like, again, devastated and I left that place crying like a little girl. I mean, I’m being so scared because I didn’t know why. So we went–he sent us to the Children’s Hospital here in Dallas. They started to do all kinds of tests again. I mean, they were poking her, her feet to get blood. They did an exam, something that they–in her back, they put a with a needle, to get liquid from her brain. So I was staying with her; the whole time I was crying. I was crying like crazy, but I didn’t want to leave her side. I mean, I just wanted to be with her. But for that test, I remember, they didn’t let me stay because they knew I wasn’t gonna make it. It’s too hard, so they told me to leave the room. And anyway, so then by the next day, in the evening, she was already stable–not having seizures, because they had already given her the medicine for seizures. But they continue to do all kinds of exams to find out the reason why she’s having seizures. 

The next day in the evening, there is a doctor coming to the NICU room, and she said, “Mom, we know. We know what happened to your baby.” They found blood in the entire left side of her brain and the reason is that she had a stroke at the time of delivery. I was just cold. I mean, I couldn’t say anything. It was a very hard moment when the doctor came and told me all this. And I mean, just to see another week in the hospital with her. And every time they were coming to get blood from her every day. I mean, you see that tiny little baby…I was wishing to be the one in bed, getting poked every day. And I was just wondering, why am I not the one and my baby is here? Destroying my heart, the whole process.

But I remember I mean, it’s…there’s no way you’re not going to feel pain during that time. But at the same time, I was just holding onto the word that I heard from the Holy Spirit telling me, “I gave you a perfect baby.” So one of the things was, what the doctors were telling me versus what the Holy Spirit told me, because every doctor was telling me, “You have to keep an eye on your baby. Not only right now, but as she grows up. Because right now you’re not going to be able to tell anything. But having blood in the entire left side of the brain can affect a lot of things in her life. Like, because it’s the left side of her brain, the right side of her body may not function uniformly with the rest of her body. She might have learning issues, she might…” So they started to tell me a list of things that she could have as she grows. I just remember, I mean, praying, praying and the Lord speaking to me the same word over and over. “She’s perfect. Perfect. I gave you a perfect baby. I gave you a perfect baby.”

One of my biggest concerns, because they said, I can’t remember the time they gave me but they say, I believe it was like three months. They said, “We’re going to see her in three months again. We’re going to do an MRI and if she still has the blood, we have to do a surgery.” And I was like–so I pray, pray. I fasted, I prayed, and praise God, the next time they did it there was no blood. I mean, until this day, I pray for her every night, every morning, and I lay hands on her head and I speak and I prophecy, “You’re perfect. You will never have any delay. You will never have any issue. The Lord created you whole and perfect.” 

It’s amazing because I mean, she will be four years in July and at this point, I can tell you, the Lord gave me a perfect daughter. I mean, she’s, she has never had any issue and because of what happened, we had to bring her to the neurologist up until she was almost two years. First every three months, then every six months, then every year and so on, because they wanted to keep track of her. They kept doing EEG exams, they can do it, keep doing MRIs and a lot of tests and just to see, you know, her development. How she’s walking, how is she moving, or when they point light in her eyes to see if they go to the same place, and just things like that. So I remember the last appointment we had with the neurologist. He got all his papers from her since she was born. And I remember he said to us, my husband and I, and he said, “What are you guys doing?” And I said, “We pray for her every day.” And he said, “Well, you guys have done a great job. Please keep talking to Whoever you talk to, because she couldn’t be any better.”

And after that, I mean no reason anymore to go see a doctor. After that, I mean, I have talked to her teachers in the preschool because she goes to preschool and with few of the teachers, I have shared the testimony and they’re like, “She’s super smart. You could never tell that that happened to her.” And you know, maybe you probably hear from every mom saying, ‘My son or my daughter is very smart.’ I guess it’s typical. But mine is very smart. Ha ha ha. Yeah, so the just, in general, I mean, it’s so amazing to see. I mean, how the power of the Lord and how just that sweet–It wasn’t a big message that the Lord told me that night. He only said, “I gave you a perfect baby.” That’s it. And it brought so much peace to me. And that was it, that sweet voice that I heard was the entire reason how I made it through that season. Because the thing is, it was like, after two weeks of being hospitalized, we were back at home with her. But at the same time, I was so worried about the future, because they were telling me, “You have to watch her when she starts walking. You have to watch her when she starts going to school–that she doesn’t have any difficulty learning.” So I wasn’t so worried about that moment, but about the future. But just to hold on to that word that the Lord had told me that night and just know that. It brought so much peace to my heart. 

And now, I mean, right now at this point, I don’t even think about something is going to happen. I just pray for her every day as part of my prayer life. And I just know, I mean. I just know as a fact that it will never affect her because His nature; He is faithful, faithful by nature. I was reading that this morning. So even if we fail, even if we don’t please the Lord, His promises to us are faithful because He is faithful, not because I’m faithful.