Have you ever looked directly at the sun? It hurts doesn’t it?! Your eyes are simply not designed or able to take in that much brightness, and it doesn’t take long before you need to look away. Your perspective on the world tends to change when you are forced to look directly at something. Well on the 12th May, my perspective on the world changed forever.

My wife and I are blessed to have 2 children, Samuel (7) and Addy (4). Now parents are not unfamiliar with tiredness due to their children not sleeping, however Addy takes it to the next level having only slept through the night only a few times in her whole life.

On the morning of 12th May after having played musical beds all night, at 6am I awake with the terrified voice of my wife shouting my name to come to the bathroom. Addy seemed to be vomiting, and yet there was little fluid coming out of her mouth. Addy had a glazed look in her eyes and the colour seemed to be draining from her face fast. As I called her name, she seemed unable to hear and her legs began to give way from underneath her. As she collapsed, I caught her in my arms; I could feel her heart racing and yet she was not breathing. As I looked into her eyes, life drained from her body as her lips turned blue and her eyes rolled back into her head. In those moments I remember thinking “My precious four-year-old daughter, she’s going to die in my arms.” – Addy was choking on her own vomit and was unable to breathe.

As I shouted to my wife to call an ambulance, I remembered the first aid training I had received in the years before. I knew that something was stuck in Addy’s throat and it needed to be dislodged for her to breathe in the life-giving oxygen she so desperately needed to stay alive. I had no other choice than to administer abdominal thrusts on my own child. Recalling how to do it from the back of my mind, I held her limp body against my own and performed one. This seemed to have little effect and so I administered a second within 7 seconds as I remember calling out to God for help. As the ambulance started to hammer on the door and in those seconds following, the second abdominal thrust was enough to expel the vomit from her air passages as Addy took a gasp of air. The blood returned to her lips and she started to breathe shallowly but unaided for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime – she was going to be OK – however this had started a journey of exploration which we are still on. As I held her close, I sank to the floor with tears flooding my eyes at the thought of how different things could have been.

As the paramedics burst through front door and ran up the stairs, they whisked Addy out of my shaking arms to a more comfortable place, I turned to see Samuel stood there having witnessed the majority of it asking me the question “Is Addy going to die?”

It was a truly terrifying experience that as a parent you never think you’d have to go through – and yet a few weeks later it happened for a second time.

Now, why am I telling you this?

Because throughout the past 6 months, society has been living in the abnormal, the uncertainty of so much; economically, health, socially, and we as a people are changed by this; our perspective has changed because we have been forced to stare into something that has more power than us and it leaves us with the questions about what our response is – do we look away or continue to stare at it.

In Matthew 17 (the Transfiguration) we see Jesus go up a mountain with Peter, James and John when suddenly Jesus’ appearance changed and shone. The disciples’ first response was to try something they were familiar to (build a memorial), then the second response was fear driven and to look away (falling face down). It was only when they heard the words from their Saviour “Get up….don’t be afraid” that they got up and they chose to cast their gaze on something more powerful than themselves. As they walked back down the mountain, Jesus asks them to not share of the experience until His resurrection. Why? Because I believe that something had changed in them, something that takes time to work out, something that will change their perspective in time – because they have stared at the SON.

As I have wrestled with God over what Addy has had to go through, it has helped changed my perspective of suffering, as I have had to cast my burdens on God and been forced to stare at the son.

What are you staring at this week? and What is your response? Will you turn away, or will you look towards Jesus?

This week, I pray that we can join together for God to hear us in the following areas:

  • For children/young people who have special needs, who find change hard. Pray that God will help comfort them and speak to them directly in a way they can uniquely understand.
  • For the parents and siblings of those children/young people with special needs. Pray for understanding patience and joy in the midst of challenge.
  • For those who are going through challenges at the moment, that we will look towards the one who can change our perspective.
  • For children/young people going back to school in September – that Christ will meet them in the midst of change.
  • For those young people the team will be meeting in the school summer programmes – that something of Christ will be left with them.

Dave Clarke – Director of Swindon Youth for Christ.