A Rainbow Heart

Lara Edmonds

Description

A story of a mother’s love, faith and quest for healing.
Similar to Maria Housden’s “Hannah’s Gift” the author shares her very personal account of a mother’s journey with a critically ill child and the inspirational way in which they were empowered to ascend the ladder to heaven.

This story radiates hope.



It inspires us to encounter God in our darkest hour.



When the Holy Spirit gave the Edmonds their ‘Rainbow Promise,’ they were high up on the eleventh floor of a hospital tower with their critically ill baby, James. In faith, they embraced it fully. However, they had no idea that God would unravel His colorful supernatural sign, not only across the sky, but across generational timelines and even realms where angels moved. Ultimately, this radiant promise would lead them to heaven’s gate.



Lara and Andrew Edmonds have had the privilege of sharing their journey with a number of churches, schools, and ladies’ groups over the years, and it has touched the hearts of many people…



“Your testimony about your journey with little Baby James said what a hundred sermons could not say. I know that there wasn’t a dry eye in the church. From all of us, who sat in your presence with weeping hearts that night, I thank you for your courage and for the wonderful witness to the love of God, as revealed in His ‘rainbow’ fingerprints.”

(Rev Ian Mc Guigan – All Saints United Church, Pietermaritzburg, 2004).



Lessons on letting go.

Sujets

• Christian Living
• Inspirational
• Philosophie et théologie
• Letting Go
• Energy medicine
• Terminal illness
• Jacob's Ladder
• Healing
• Loss
• Supernatural
• Religion
• Spiritual Healing
• Heaven
• Grief
• Death
• Cancer

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 17 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781664270299
• Langue: English

Extrait

A RAINBOW Heart
Our Journey with James
Lara Edmonds


Copyright © 2022 Lara Edmonds.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.
 
 
WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Cover and interior image credit: Kerry Pentz.
 
Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version.
 
Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7030-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7031-2 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7029-9 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022911557
 
 
WestBow Press rev. date: 8/16/2022
Contents
Prologue
Old Sodden Boxes
To Write a Dream
A Picture Tells a Thousand Words
No Room in the Inn
Oh, Mother!
The Cute Factor
Moments in Time
Little Boy Blue
A Very Special Boy
Darkness
The Terrible Truth
Finally, a Diagnosis
Dawn
Preparing to Leave
Our Darkest Hour
No Doctor?
Jo’burg Hospital
Very Little Hope
Midnight in Johannesburg Hospital
The Decision
The Cause
A Little Visitor
Special Friends
A Roller Coaster
A Sign in the Sky
Back Down to Earth and Up Again
Birthday Boy
Chasing God’s Rainbow
Searching for a Match
A Rainbow in the Post
Heavenly Co-ordination
Battle of the Doctors
He Holds the Detail in His Hands...
The Perfect Time
At Long Last
A Floating Aquarium
Ticking Clock
Time to Transplant
Final Count Down
Frozen in Time
Great Joy
A Mystery...
A Ladder in the Dark
Devastating News
You can pull a rainbow out of the box!
A Fearful Call
Second Time Around!
Still Waiting
Completely Empty
The Meaning of True Love
A Rainbow Ladder to Heaven
St James
Rainbows Truly Have No End...
The Heart of the Matter
I Count My Blessings Twice
Epilogue

In memory of our baby,
James Paxton Edmonds.
Dedicated To
Andrew, Isabella, Samuel, the doctors, and nurses who treated James.
It is also dedicated to family, friends, our community, and all those who journeyed with us.
Special Thanks
I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to all the people who supported me on my writing journey - you know who you are! I must, however, make particular mention of the following folk whose expertise I found invaluable:
Kerry Pentz, Sharon Reece, Amanda Risi, and Clive Thompson.


The Hope Flower
Imagine you found an envelope,
Just lying on the ground?
You picked it up and read the label.
“Plant me!” it said in scribbled hand.
“Nurture me, and I will give you Hope!”
So you planted the single seed of Hope,
And you watched it sprout and grow,
You nurtured it and waited patiently for its bud to form.
Sure enough, before your eyes
A mysterious flower unfurled.
For days, you observed its mesmerising color, shape, and grace.
And then, rather sadly,
You watched it fade.
So, you pulled the crumpled, dried out flower off the stem
In an attempt to save the rest of the plant!
But at that moment
You witnessed the true miracle of that flower,
For within your grasp,
Lay the seeds of HOPE
And fields and fields of flowers.
by Lara Edmonds
Prologue
Do you believe in miracles? I have come to understand that amazing things can happen to ordinary folk if one is open to them. I hope our story inspires you to see the miracles in your own life.
As a pastor’s daughter, the Bible caught my imagination like no other storybook ever did. The Garden of Eden, for starters, was a fascinating subtropical garden, with creatures peering from behind every conceivable species of plant - Adam and Eve were the only wild and naked ones. As a ‘goody-goody,’ I always won the ‘Best Attendance Certificate’ at the Good News Club, as well as the Sunday School Bible Quiz. While this may have irked some of my friends who probably felt that I had an unfair advantage as the club leader’s daughter, it certainly didn’t bother me, as I greedily enjoyed my prize - the inevitable slab of Nestlé chocolate.
Church was a natural way of life for our family, and it was not confined to Sundays. We beetled off in the back of my parents’ VW station wagon on week-nights to attend the Bible Studies held in the neighboring farm districts. Here, snuggled up in my sleeping bag, I remember listening attentively to the lesson when I was supposed to be fast asleep.
My childhood was always steeped in sermons and flavored by the visits of guest speakers, who offered us the opportunity to witness intense discussions and debates. It was also filled with noisy choir songs and fun-filled Christmas plays. It is no wonder then that my idea of miracles was a vivid one - not unlike the bright illustrations in my collection of ‘Children’s Bible Stories’ or the tales shared by foreign missionaries over tea.
However, as part of my teaching degree, when I took a Biblical Studies course, I found that others had a more subtle interpretation of these Old Testament miracles that had been so colorfully woven into my childhood. With unqualified horror, I became more and more aware of this, as each Bible miracle was shredded. Our class was told, for example, that it had been scientifically proven that winds from the West could dry up the Red Sea, that rock-falls periodically dam up the Jordan River, and that manna is a seed-pod that can still be found in the desert. These revelations hit us like an earthquake, as our understanding of the biblical heroes like Moses, with his grey beard streaming and his outstretched staff, crumbled in each lecture.
“These were mighty miracles – don’t make them sound like accidents!” was our cry.
Our professors must have watched with gentle amusement as the very foundations of our faith appeared to be shaken. They surely knew that, after this initial academic quake, the class would tremulously grow to accept that miracles did, in fact, still exist – and that they were just as great - but that they were miracles of timing. Thus, with a touch of sadness, a new perspective replaced the powerful childhood images of these biblical characters and miracles. Indeed a very practical God uses what already exists in His creation to perform His miracles. Oral tradition, which was not dependent on scientific analysis, created these epic tales of God’s mighty miracles. This, especially, makes sense to me now - almost.
What happened to my family may read like an old-fashioned biblical miracle – it is just that God decided to modernize it and project it into a new-world setting.
You see, our faith was galvanized into action when our firstborn son, James, was diagnosed with a very rare form of leukemia at just eleven months. We learned that he only had a 20% chance of survival and that the only known cure was a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor. Within days of his diagnosis, we would be plucked out of our home and our safe, traditional Bible Study group and catapulted into a spiritual storm.
In our quest for healing, we gave God the tablet of our hearts, and in faith, we allowed Him to craft each chapter. We then watched in awe as the same omnipotent and omniscient God in the storybooks of my childhood wove a colorful tale of hope and grace through our lives. God’s rainbow became a powerful signpost that guided us through unimaginable difficulties, and His promises comforted us in times of near despair. The fact that we still perceive our little son’s passing as a beautiful destiny bears testimony to the miracle that God performed in our lives. There are no words to describe our gratitude and the humility we now experience; they too are a gift that we embrace, and they underscore our conviction to share our journey with you. We now invite you to chase God’s rainbow with our family.
CHAPTER ONE
Old Sodden Boxes
An old decoupage hatbox that had lost its lid, together with two large boxes filled with papers, sat on my spare-room beds. My husband, Andrew, had rescued them from our flooded outside office. A bag filled with pine needles had blocked the drain and, after weeks of unrelenting rain, the water had seeped under the door until my tiny office lay a foot deep in water. It was fortunate that we noticed this because, since our move to the new house, I had probably only ventured into the office four or five times. To an outside observer, it consisted of nothing more than a built-in desk and