"God, how did you do it???"

I am going to write the most difficult blog that I have written so far as I have had one of the most difficult days today. It wasn’t difficult because I worked hard, or that I am mentally drained, but I am emotionally spent as I lay here in bed tonight. I have dealt with a lot of emotionally tough things in life. I come from a divorced family which was very tough growing up (luckily it has been a huge blessing now as both of my parents have been happily married for quite some time now). I have been in three car accidents that weighed heavy on my heart. I have been to Africa and lived amongst a people group that were extremely impoverished. I have driven my wife, who was in active labor, to the hospital so that we could have sweet Charis in our lives 12 minutes after we arrived. I have done a lot of things that drained me emotionally. But today I held my precious son's lifeless body in my arms and watched his lips as they turned blue from the lack of oxygen and I yelled his name pushing on his chest until he came back around to life. Now let me make this clear, I didn’t perform CPR and bring him back from the dead, I was just panicking and screaming his name asking him to breathe. Now here are the events that led up to this time.

Alyson and I opened the door to Cayman's room today because we were both going in there to wake him up from his nap. As soon as we saw his face we looked at each other and just smiled over how beautiful of a child God has blessed us with. We both then climbed into his bed to snuggle with him and he woke up with the biggest smile in the world. He was instantly full of energy and so we began our regular games of chasing each other around the house. While Cayman was chasing me I jumped over a bag of baby wipes and Cayman stepped right on them and immediately fell to the ground and grabbed his foot in pain. I thought it was just a little slip until I noticed that he was catching his breath like he does when he is about to SCREAM with pain. So I quickly picked him up and told Alyson that it was about to get loud because he was getting ready to scream. All I heard was his continued gasps as he prepared to get enough oxygen to wail. As I moved him away from my ear, because I know how loud his screams are, I looked at his face just in time to see his eyes roll back into his head and his lifeless body fall away from me towards the ground.  I caught him and immediately screamed his name. I told Alyson to call 911 and she rushed past me to get her phone and told me everything will be ok. I laid his body on the ground and continued screaming his name, asking him to breathe, pushing his chest and doing everything I could to hold back my tears. After what seemed like 10 minutes (though it was closer to 20 seconds) he opened his eyes. I continued to yell his  name louder and telling him to breathe because I could tell he was not back conscious yet. Finally he focused his eyes on me and poked his bottom lip out and started to cry. I jumped to my feet and ran to get “boo” because I knew that is the only thing my son would want after this experience. I picked him up and wrapped my arms around him and sat holding him on the couch weeping because I thought I was going to lose my son, my only son, the one that I love more than any other little boy on earth. And this is what has been playing over in my head ever since this happened.

During one of these times when I was replaying these events in my head I asked myself “God, how did you do it”? How did you allow your precious son to come to this earth, to live a perfect life, and then to die on a cross. How did you feel when those Roman soldiers were beating your Son with the cat of nine tails until the very brink of death? How did you watch as they spat in His face, and mocked Him, and put a crown of thorns on His head? How hard was it for you to watch Him as He carried the cross up to Calvary and was pierced through His hands and feet? Did you feel like I did when Jesus breathed His final breath and you saw His lifeless body hanging on the cross? Did you scream His name asking Him to breathe again? Did you cry and weep over his body once he was dead? And as I ask these questions about God seeing His son die I know that the reason He allowed this to happen was for me. He did it because He wanted a personal relationship with me!! Oh the grace of God is greater than I will ever understand. I couldn’t imagine watching my precious Cayman die this way. I couldn’t imagine loving anyone enough to sacrifice my only son. I couldn’t imagine what I would be feeling as my son breathed his last breath. Thank you God for loving me this much. I will live my life as a sacrifice to you, as an act of worship because of your great love for me. Thank you God for protecting my precious Cayman and for watching over him today. Thank you for reminding me how quickly life can be taken away from us. I pray you will remind me of this often when I am not appreciating every last second that I have with this amazing family that you have blessed me with. I don’t know how you did it God, but I sure am thankful that you did!!