Austin Lewter/Jefferson Jimplecute
Editor’s note: This is a variation of a column wh ich was first published in the 2010 Thanksgiving edition of the Jefferson Jimplecute.
My wife and I have four children. The oldest of whom is a 15-year old boy named Jackson.
Jackson was born at 28 weeks of gestation. He was 12 weeks premature when my wife, Jennifer, was in a car accident.
The injuries she sustained were serious enough to put her, until then, healthy pregnancy at risk. The doctor decided an emergency c-section was in order.
He weighed three pounds when he was born— a tiny thing. I have pictures of him wearing my size 13 wedding band as a bracelet. He was small but bigger than a lot of other 28-week preemies we have since met.
From the beginning, he faced issues. When he was one day old, the goal was to get him off the ventilator and breathing on his own. Some doctors were afraid that would be impossible.
When he was seven days old, they told us that he had suffered chronic bleeding in his brain. Most professionals we encountered diagnosed him as a kid who would never walk and never talk.
Ten days later, he contracted a rare infection in his bowel from which there is only a ten percent survival rate. They told us that evening he would likely not make it through the night.
He did and, 15 years later, he is a healthy 8th grader who has made the Honor Roll.
It was a long road to get here with many specialists, hospitals and home health visits. He spent the better part of the first year of his life in a hospital bed.
We rang in the new year, 2008, in the neo-natal ICU at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas.
I remember talking to a family therapist there. She was a nice enough person but seemed to lack any real of what a family could be going through at that point.
It wasn’t her fault, that is just how it is. No one can really know what someone else is going through in that situation.
Not even a PhD in human psychology, which is what this lady was. She was young, not much older than us, and intelligent.
I don’t think doctors in those types of environments necessarily mean to be negative. Most of them are realists and know what the medical textbook tells them.
In our case, the textbooks said our son didn’t have a chance.
I explained that we remained positive about Jackson and knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, he would eventually be fine.
We told her we wouldn’t take “No” for an answer— that he would, someday, be a healthy, happy little boy.
After listening to my convictions, the therapist looked at me and said, “Yes Mr. Lewter, it is good to remain positive, but you must also remain realistic about these things.”
Realistic?— as if she was saying we were crazy for thinking he would eventually recover.
“What is the definition of reality?” I asked in return.
“Excuse me?” she replied.
“You are the one with a PhD in psychology,” I said. “And you are telling me to be ‘realistic.’ I am asking you, then, what is your definition of ‘reality’?”
“Well,” she uttered in a loss of words. “I guess your reality is whatever you make it.”
“That’s right,” I responded. “And our reality is that Jesus Christ was a man who walked the Earth. He raised the dead. He cleared the leper’s skin and he fed a few thousand people with a couple of fish. The days of miracles are not over and our reality tells us that our son will eventually be fine. We are being realistic.”
There was no way she could argue with our conviction and she excused herself. That was the last time she stopped by our room.
This is the conviction that the Bible teaches us. Matthew 11:4-6 says, “Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.’”
The days of miracles are not over. Scholars have debated this over the centuries but, to me, there is no way to argue the point.
Miracles happen everyday and the sooner we open our eyes and hearts to them, the more they will reveal themselves.
Austin Lewter is co-publisher of the Jefferson Jimplecute. He can be reached at jeffersonjimplecute@gmail.com