The Greatest Beat I’ve Ever Seen

Readers, I am exhausted. 

We just finished up a week at a junior high school summer camp in Trinity, TX with Faithbridge Methodist and Champion Forest Baptist, two wonderful churches based out in Spring. 

The camp went great.  God did some really intense work in the students and in us as well.

On our way back home to Bryan, we had driven about 10 miles from the camp, when all of the sudden we were hit with the trecherous sound of a flat tire grinding against the pavement. 

Our back right tire had met it’s end.

We pulled to a stop on the side of the road, and I immediately felt sick to my stomach. 

It wasn’t so much a ‘I ate the camp sausage and am now reaping the reward’ kind of sick, but more of a ‘Terri has her first ultrasound in a couple hours and we have a flat tire in Huntsville’ kind of sick.

With the help of some friends and our superior knowledge of changing a tire, we were able to make a very old and very flat spare get us to the nearest tire shop.  There we were informed that our van was in fact a top-heavy death trap that had three more tires not far from blowing out themselves. 

So after exchanging concerned looks and then expressing our gratitude to God, we bought four new tires and continued on our way.

We made it back to Bryan just in time for me to randezvous with Terri and go to our appointment, and after going over some paperwork details and getting Terri prepped, we were smack dab in the middle of our first ultra sound. 

Terri was lying on the hospital bed and I stood behind her holding her hand as we watched the small screen. 

It just looked like white snow on a TV with no reception.

I kept looking, up and down, left and right, trying to find some kind of shape or discoloration to appear. 

Nothing.

“When was it that you had the positive pregnancy test?” asked the nurse.

“June 2nd.”

“Hmmm, well this appears to be your uterus, but it’s too small to show any kind of pregnancy.”

All of the sudden I was short of breath and my heart was in my throat.  God, please let that baby be there. 

I looked down at Terri and I could see that she was frightened, just holding her breath, waiting for something to happen.

“Ah-ha! There it is.  There’s your baby.  See, and that is its little heart beat.”

And sure enough, there on the screen was a tiny little blob with an even tinier spot in the middle that was beating incredibly fast, as if in playful competition with mom and dad’s own fast-beating hearts. 

What a huge moment.  We were told that seeing the heart beat of your baby at this stage in the pregnancy drops the chance of a miscarraige down to only 5%. 

This, by and far, was undoubtedly the greatest beat I’ve ever seen.