A Family Needs Your Prayers

During the busy bustle of your holiday celebrations and preparations, will you please take a few minutes to lift up the Spina family in prayer? Mark and Susan Spina said goodbye to their 11-year-old daughter Gabby this morning as she went to be with the Lord. She woke up for school un Wednesday with weakness on her left side. She had been a healthy child with no sign of trouble in the past. They rushed her to the hospital where she had extensive surgery to stop bleeding in her brain. She declined rapidly, and doctors were unable to control the swelling and pressure in her head. She continued to decline until this morning when she was only being kept alive by machines. Mark and Susan had to make the terrible decision no parent should ever have to make, to decide to let their daughter go by withdrawing life support.

Gabby knew the Lord as her savior, and she was active in her church's youth group as well as being a student in the Christian school that my own daughter attends. She was 11 years old and was in the sixth grade. She had many friends, and the students at the school are making web pages, poems, pictures, and cards to celebrate her life and comfort her family. Gabby is in Heaven now and is at peace. It is for her parents and sister that I grieve because I know that losing a child hurts so deeply. The Bible tells us to celebrate when a Christian goes home to be with Christ. It is those of us left behind who have to cope with the tears and pain, and something about death seems so cruel. This was not how God wanted life to be for us. It is sin that brought death into our world at all, and its sting touches all of us so deeply. When we are in Christ's family, death of a loved one is more like saying good night because we'll see them again. It's just a very long night, and our senses tell us that death is final. Even though we know it in the head, the heart has other plans.

As a mom, I can't help thinking that it could be my daughter. The Spinas are health-conscious vegetarians. There was no warning at all. That seems so hard to take, to understand.

Please keep the Spinas in your thoughts and prayers. Hold your children a little closer this Christmas, and remember to say "I love you" just one more time, even if you think they already know. Make time to read just one more bedtime story or play just one extra board game. Take time to let them lick the spoon when you're baking, and sing that song with them just one more time. Later on, you'll be glad you did.