katie shaw ficker

Gabriel was a fighter. And in his short life, Gabriel encouraged all of us to fight as well: to fight for life, to stand strong in Truth, to draw close to God, to draw close to each other… to believe that God is our strength, that He is a Mighty Warrior who does fight for us. Early on in this pregnancy, I felt God led me to stand on the verse Zephaniah 3:17 “The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.” While I did not understand it all at the time, God has brought us through the promises that this verse holds throughout this pregnancy and into today.

By the third trip to the emergency room, we knew that our God was a victorious warrior who does save His people. And in choosing the name Gabriel, we spoke this promise out over both Gabriel and I.

As Gabriel and I carried on in the maternity ward, God did bring us a joy… He quieted many many fears with His great love. He flung wide open opportunities to build relationships and testify these Truths to those around us – that indeed our great God does save us, He does rejoice in us, and He does quiet us with His great love. Even after the c-section and my recovery in the ICU, God continued to speak and move and comfort and love us in depths that are impossible to put into words. My healing has pretty much been dubbed a miracle by the staff as they watched x-rays that continued to only get worse suddenly clear to the point that the doctor thought he was looking at a new patient’s x-ray instead of mine! And God was the only explanation. As I sit here right now writing this and waiting for my discharge I have had every doctor and many nurses that are a part of this come by, most with tears in their eyes, as they speak not of the death of little Gabriel, but of the testimony that his life brought!! The importance of life that we all were able to testify to as  we ALL stood for life, as we all learned alongside of each other as a team, as we all fought and gave all we had… as Gabriel also held on and gave all he had.

It would be so so easy to look at the outcome of this situation as a failure, but that would also be a complete tragedy and untruth…

The afternoon after the c-section, I lay in my ICU bed, struggling to breathe, struggling to grasp all that had happened, in pain… and looking to God for anything. And He gave me a picture/vision so real that I felt like I could have reached out and touched Him right there in that room… something I have never experienced so vividly in my life before. And I don’t know how to put into words what that vision was like, but I so desperately wish I could take each of you to that exact place so that you too could experience it as I watched our God as a joyous Father gaze down – proudly, with a pure perfect love that far surpassed even the love that we as parents feel for our precious children –  at little 26 week old Gabriel who slept soundly in the crook of His arm. Oh, friends, I cannot express in words the JOY that flowed from HIs face over one little baby that had come home!! Gabriel was delighted in as if he was the only baby that had ever been created… and some of you need to hear this for your own little ones that have gone on before you! And then I turned and followed His gaze as He proudly showed our baby off to a whole chorus of angels rejoicing and rejoicing, praising God, singing out songs of victory and joy. And there in the crook of God’s other arm, lay Gabriel’s little twin, perfect, beautiful, soundly and peacefully sleeping.

As Zephaniah 3:17 says, our Mighty, Good, Victorious, Warrior King who won the victory in this long battle was rejoicing over our little babies with nothing but pure, proud, gentle, perfect, joy and love.

I shouldn’t be alive… but I am. Life saved a few times. And I shouldn’t be leaving yet… but I am. Miraculous recovery as God reminds me that He loves us fiercely and deeply and intimately. He didn’t have to send me a vision… but He did. Empty arms and aching heart filled with the promise that one day, we will be united again.. and that until then, these two little babies will hold the hands of the most perfect Father that could ever raise them.

And He didn’t have to send His one and only son… but He did. A little baby boy who quietly entered the world, unnoticed by most, Holiness born in a smelly barn with a purpose much greater than the world ever would have thought at first sight… sent to save each of us from the stench and bondage that we can also be lifted up from into His loving arms… if only we will turn to Him, gaze into His loving eyes, take His strong hand in ours, acknowledge and turn away from our pain and sin, and start walking with Him each day. Hope and Love and Freedom and Healing in exchange for despair and hate and bondage and pain.

You see, just as we wrote in the beginning of this journey with Gabriel, there was no way for this story to end badly. Love… True love… always wins. It won thousands of years ago in a manger, on a cross… and it continues to still win every. single. day.

Today, we do not ultimately mourn the death of little Gabriel… we celebrate his life. This Christmas, we raise our voices with the angels, and we celebrate victory. God has won! Oh, friends, God has won! A situation that would be looked at as a failure with human eyes is instead a great victory in Heaven today.

And God, our great God, mighty to save always… He is once again lovingly, purely, and abundantly rejoicing over the life of a little baby boy…

much like He did in a much greater measure  thousands of years ago over a little barn in Bethlehem.

Merry Christmas, and Happy 2016. May you rejoice and be rejoiced over!