Six weeks have passed by since our little girl had her first of two planned surgeries. Six weeks full of suffering, hope, doubts, and the never-ending love of her father. After doctors started the dialysis at the end of last week, Hazhin lost more than one kilogram of fluids which was a good and hopeful step, but at the same time, her other organs started to fail.
Her loving dad reached the end of his strength this week, so he came for a little break from the hospital on Tuesday evening to our house in Ashdod to get some rest. Thursday morning we took him to Jerusalem where he hoped to spend the day praying, when we suddenly received a phone call from Sheba Hospital’s ICU telling us Hazhin was deteriorating, and doctors expected her to leave this world in the next hours.
Jonathan drove straight to the hospital with Hazhin’s dad. There, he and Jakob spent the next hours praying at Hazhin’s side. Hazhin kept fighting and hanging on to life and so last evening the doctors told us that they can’t tell whether she will fight for some more hours or days. Her father decided he wanted to come with us to Ashdod and return in case something happened and the ICU called us.
That call came at 4:15 tonight.
A few minutes later, Jakob, Hazhin’s dad and I were in the car traveling to the hospital again. The following hours were spent in her room, watching the numbers of her heart rate going up and down until shortly after eight o’clock, the numbers dropped further and further and Hazhin went – her earthly father holding her tiny hand – home to her heavenly Father.
Hazhin’s suffering has come to an end, and while we are grieving here on earth with her family, we want to trust that God never lets us go and He didn’t let Hazhin go – He just brought her home into his loving arms.
One of the things we loved the most about their relationship was Hazhin’s dad calling out his daughter’s name in his sweet and kind voice: “Hazhin!” He did this while she was still in our house, all the weeks she was in the ICU, and also in her last hours. There was so much love in only saying her name, that we were always so much touched by it, sometimes it brought tears to our eyes. Imagine how much her heavenly father must love her then.
But now, this is what the Lord says— he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. Isaiah 43.1
This afternoon we buried our girl in Jerusalem right across from the Garden of Gethsemane in a tomb with a beautiful view of the Mount of Olives. There, so close to the the place where our Messiah conquered death, Hazhin is waiting for the voice that called her into existence, to call her back to life.
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 1 Corinthians 15:55
For Hazhin’s family, a long period of grief and pain has now begun. We don’t know why God decided to heal Hazhin in eternity instead of here.
But we know that He is here with us, will restore us and is all we need. And in this trust, we will rest. And be still.