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“Elissa: God’s tiny reminder 
of His immense faithfulness”
October 2003

by Elizabeth Witt-Reeve

For our tiny flower princess was born with a disorder that would end her life very early.  We had found out about the disorder that affected her tiny body thirty weeks into the pregnancy.  People could tell us where to end her life, or how to manage procedures and equipment that might extend her body’s stay in this world.  But no one seemed to tell us how we could help her live whatever life was given to her.

Somewhere along the line, the many prayers raised on her behalf and on our behalf provided peace.  Her movements in my womb became an opportunity to know her more, to love her more.  Her birthday was a day of rejoicing.  We’d been told she probably would not make it through birth.  But she did.  She was strong and beautiful, and we brought her home with such joy.

We were blessed with 162 precious days with this exquisite child.  God had promised me early that if I would listen to her and listen to Him, she would not suffer.  Her last hours, she was suffering in her breathing, and I became angry with the Lord.  I said to Him, “You promised she would not suffer, You promised You would be faithful to keep her in peace and comfort.”  Upon uttering those anguished words, I saw that my little girl had stopped breathing. The Lord was faithful indeed to keep her in peace and comfort all the days of her life.

And when we returned home from her memorial service, God sent dragonflies to remind us that this perfect little girl was now home where she would know the language, where her body would be whole.  So you see, the dragonflies have for us, too, been a reminder of God’s faithfulness and love for us, and for his tiniest creation.

God truly showed me how His perfection has no regard for the forms of this world; my tiny girl could not smile, could not hold her head up, could not do the things infants “are supposed to” … disabled, something wrong with her, severely handicapped, all the labels the world might apply. Yet we saw her as perfect, just as she was. Beautiful, miraculous.

She touched lives all over the country, reminded so many of God’s faithfulness, God’s blessings, the richness of a life with God no matter what the length, and the promise of joy in welcoming God’s blessings into one’s life.  For truly, God formed her in the womb, knew the number of her days, welcomed her home as His child.

Note from Elizabeth
One part of Elissa's story that we are trying to share is how a prenatal diagnosis can be used for good -- using the advance notice to love and cherish the child exactly as she is, rather than spending her life mourning what she is not. But also, to offer this thought up very very humbly, for it wasn't profound religious convictions that required us to see the pregnancy and Elissa's life through its own course, but rather God's grace and simple parental love that made us long to meet our daughter, if only for minutes, and know that somehow, God would sustain us through whatever came ahead through His very present grace in those around us. It wasn't the action only a saint can do, it was nothing more than falling into the grace God put before our very ordinary lives.

Elizabeth Witt-Reeve