~ArienKronian

Mercy Me - Bring the Rain
I can count a million times
People asking me how I
Can praise You with all that
I've gone through
The question just amazes me
Can circumstances possibly
Change who I forever am in You

Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It's never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you, oh Lord
My only shelter from the storm
But instead I draw closer through these times
So I pray

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings
You glory And I know there'll
be days When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to
praise You Jesus, bring the rain

A salute to my mother and my Aunt Ester, who can pray on like this song says in these past dark days.

On Saturday night, the doctors told us that my uncle was brain dead. He would never wake save by a miracle. Even if he woke, he'd be a vegetable for the rest of his life. They frankly believed he would never ever wake, and the picture painted for us was a hopeless one.
So hopeless, nerves in the brain stem destroyed, brain completely flooded in blood, brain completely and utterly dead.

Organ failure would follow in a matter of time, as no blood circulated , his heart only beat due to drugs.

In short he placed before us a very simple, yet so difficult choice. "Pull the plug or not."

In my heart I would want my family to do, were I in the same comatose, "medically" dead state. I would have my family end my empty shell of a body.

To me, my uncle's soul must have left some time ago and all that remained was a husk, kept alive by the power of modern medicine. In a way, the memory of him lying there, "breathing", his heartbeat "steady" yet according to the doctor, lifeless, fills me with a kind of horror. A dead thing, kept alive.

The majority of those present (I had no say so I kept quiet) wanted to keep him alive. Because they had a hope that a miracle would happen. So we prayed. And as the situation was made clear to us medically by the doctors and facing that decision, we prayed that if God would not raise him, God please take him away cleanly, that we not be forced to decide.

His heart stopped on Monday afternoon despite the drugs.
Whether or not brain death was true death, I am relieved. There is no doubt now, "God took him away" and we didn't have to make that decision.

Perhaps it sounds really callous but for me personally, I can believe that my uncle is free of suffering. Although I wonder if all our prayers were in vain. (Although admittedly I felt like an unbeliever trying to pray to a God who I am no longer certain I'm trusting)