Free One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting by Marie Monville Page A

be born prematurely. I followed the doctor’s recommendation and confined myself to the bed or the couch. Charlie hovered over me when he was home, driven to serve me and make me comfortable.
    My desperation for the Lord grew fierce during this time. I needed him to protect our child, to protect me, and to guard our family. I pressed into the Word and into my knowledge of him in a new way. I needed to understand: Why were we going through this terrifying experience? I cried out for healing, desperate for a miracle from Jesus like those mentioned throughout the Gospels. Just one touch could restore me, and I longed for that touch!
    With little else to do while confined to my bed for weeks, I read and prayed. Sometimes I felt the Lord still my heart andbring peace to my fears. But that peace would be short-lived, because worry would begin to erode the work he was doing. I’d never been tested by personal crisis. I didn’t know how to trust that everything would be okay when appearances told me otherwise. His Word told me to fear not and to cast all my anxiety on him, but I didn’t get how it was possible to live out the reality of those Scriptures in my moment of crisis. Was God going to fix this? Not knowing the answer, I did everything in my power to fix it myself, as I always had. I followed the doctor’s instructions to the letter, but the bleeding got no better. It came and went and came again, no matter how I prayed.
    Charlie was at work from 6:30 in the morning until 5:00 in the afternoon. During those long hours alone, I battled the what-ifs swirling in my mind. What if the baby dies? What if I hemorrhage? What if there’s something wrong with my baby? What is wrong with me? Then I’d read Scripture and cry out to God to heal whatever was wrong.
    Ever so slowly, God began to show me a new kind of trust. One verse in particular whispered peace into my heart: “I sought the LORD , and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame” (Psalm 34:4 – 5).
    By my standards, it didn’t feel as if I was getting it right — still, I sensed him tenderly leading my heart and encouraging me to grow in trust
despite
my circumstances. Sometimes it felt like one step forward and two steps back, but I clung to verses of Scripture promising that he was faithful to me even when I lacked faith.
    Although the bleeding didn’t stop, no other symptoms emerged, so we settled into this new and difficult routine as much as possible, holding on to the hope that Elise would be born at full term.
    Charlie and I celebrated our first anniversary on November 9, 1997. Five days later I went into labor three months premature.
    I awoke that day feeling sick. I didn’t know what labor should feel like, but I was sure this was it. With a feeling of dread, knowing our baby girl wasn’t yet developed enough to enter this world, we called our doctor and headed to the hospital in Lancaster at the peak of morning rush hour. We inched along at what felt like a crawl. We tried to reassure ourselves that Elise would not be born that morning. Certainly, we told each other, the doctors could do something to stop this.
    At the hospital, they didn’t seem to believe me at first when I said I was in labor. But when they finally realized that I knew the truth of what was going on in my body, nurses and doctors started scrambling, and my whole world came crashing down. My daughter was indeed going to be born that morning, and very soon. There was nothing they could do to stop the labor, so they started prepping for delivery and called in the neonatal intensive care unit team. Within minutes Elise Victoria made her appearance — so tiny, so fragile, and so beautiful. She was born at 8:25 a.m., 12¼ inches and 1 lb. 3 oz. The doctors from the NICU immediately went to work trying to place a tube into her lungs, as she was too small to breathe on her own. Each of their attempts