March 2020 Articles

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Spiritual Corner: The Faithfulness of a Friend

Spiritual Corner: The Faithfulness of a Friend As most of you probably know, Randy and I welcomed our son, Hayden “Rebel” Alexander, into the world on Wednesday, January 29, 2020. It was a very difficult birth, for myself and Rebel, and the day after Rebel was born, we discovered that he was having some problems. He had a few seizures in the hospital and therefore, was sent to the NICU at St. Francis Medical Center. I remember the exact moment that I received that terrifying news. I was lying flat on my back in a hospital bed, because I had just had a blood patch procedure done that would hopefully alleviate my spinal head and neck ache. Prior to that procedure, I had just been told that I needed two blood transfusions. My day had already been filled with stresses, but then, a woman walked in and told Randy and I the news about Rebel’s seizures. In that one moment, I felt so scared and defeated. My heart was breaking for fear of losing my baby or something being terribly wrong with him. Combine those feelings with the fact that Rebel would be changing hospitals and I couldn’t go with him. I was stuck where I was, lying flat, getting blood pumped into me, and trying to recover myself. I remember not being able to hold back the flood of tears. Randy was my super hero through it all. I heard one muffled sob as he hugged me tight, but then he shook any fear off and began to support me and Rebel in any way possible. He loved me, reassured me, and simply took care of me – physically, mentally, and emotionally. He went above and beyond and I don’t know what I would have done without him. After we got the news, we had numerous visitors and text messages. Family and friends lent their love, support, and prayers to us in ways you couldn’t imagine. I could go into great detail about all of the love our little family was shown, but for the sake of me getting to the point of my article, I won’t. Later that evening, after Randy and his family had gone to St. Francis to be with Rebel, it was me and my mom and one of my best friends, Jayde, in my hospital room. Jayde had brought Randy and I some food and had stayed to visit with me. By this time, I had been comforted by people, I had prayed a lot, I had read my Bible and journaled, and I was feeling so much better about the whole situation. I was much more at peace and just leaving my trust in God. At least, I thought I was. During Jayde’s visit, I got a phone call from Rebel’s NICU doctor. I had been expecting this call for hours. The phone call was long and difficult to understand because the volume was very soft and the doctor spoke with a heavy accent. The doctor, who was very kind, talked on and on about everything they were doing for Rebel, everything they had discovered, every possible thing that could be causing the seizures, everything they were looking into, etc. He asked me question after question and then after he was done, he passed the phone to the nurse practitioner who re-explained things for me and answered more of my questions. Finally, we ended the conversation and I hung up the phone. I remember telling my mom that I was feeling really hot and then telling her and Jayde that I just felt a little overwhelmed because I was just given so much information about Rebel and his condition. My mom had to leave the room for something and Jayde and I started talking. I remember telling her that I knew that, as Christians, we are supposed to have strong faith. I knew that even during the hard times, we are just supposed to trust God and have faith that He will take care of things. I remember that right then and there I lost control of my emotions and I broke down. I knew the faith that I was supposed to have. I knew what God could do and yet, there I was, broken, doubting my great God, fearing that He wouldn’t help my son. I felt like a failure as a Christian and I felt an overwhelming fear like I’ve never felt before. It was at that moment that I remember Jayde standing over me and taking my hand. I can’t remember every single thing that she said, but what I do remember was her telling me, “Dana, that’s what your friends and family are for. When you are scared and your faith is wavering, your friends and family believe. When you are in doubt, know that I believe, I TRULY believe, it will all be okay. He’s going to be okay”. I’m not sure if Jayde even knows how much she helped me in that moment. Those words, her faithful friendship, quieted my soul and gave me the strength and faith I needed to place my trust back in God’s hands. You may be wondering what the point of my article is, so this is it. It’s so important for us, as Christians, to have a strong faith and to continue to strengthen our faith daily through prayer, worship, reading our Bible, etc. However, it’s also very important to be there for our friends, whether they are Christians or not. We also don’t need to forget about our friends who we view as strong Christians or who don’t usually seem like they need support. Those friends may be doing a great job of helping and encouraging others, but they might also be drowning in their own stresses and anxieties. We need to strive to be the kind of friend that Jayde was, and is, to me. The kind of friend who checks on others, reaches out to them, regardless of whether those friends ever reach out to us. We need to offer our prayers, our love, and our support. We need to pay attention and watch for those people who need the love of a Christian friend in their life. They may only need us to say that we’re there for them or they may need a little bit of our faith for the moment. God gave us our brothers and sisters in Christ for the love and encouragement that He knew we would need. Sometimes I wonder if we get stuck in working on ourselves and just reaching out to our closest family and friends and that we forget about the rest of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Or maybe we think they’ll reach out to us if they need anything, when really we should be reaching out to them. They could be drowning and just needing a friendly face to pull them out of the deep and remind them about God’s faithfulness and goodness. This life is tough and we need to stick together. We need to continue to strengthen our faith in God and we need to be willing to help strengthen another’s faith in God. We need to take the time to reach out to others and to be there for others. Loving God and loving people are what’s most important in this life and there are more people than we realize that need someone to remind them of the love of God. I’ll forever be thankful to my friend, Jayde, for reminding me of God’s faithfulness and for giving me her hand when I was drowning. I just hope I can do the same for others in my life and I hope each of you can, too. --Dana Alexander