Praise & Appreciation ....Emily

[Susan Mason]

by Susan Mason on Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 12:01am

On June 10, 2011 I dropped my daughter Emily off at horse camp, it would be her first time staying the night away from me w/anyone but my Mother or a family member, but I wasn't worried, the lady who owns and runs the camp is someone I have always and still think the world of. And Emily would be bunking in a tent her Uncle loaned her with one of her best little friends.The other girls Mother and I got everything set up and I went to work, wondering all day how the girls were doing, if Emily was having fun! Wishing I could be there, but knowing she would handle the training w/the pony's just fine.

Around 2:30 that day - the other lil girls Mom called me and said she was going by to check on the girls, when she got to the ranch, the kids weren't there, she called me back - I told her they were probably down at the "swim hole" cooling off (it's really a neighbors pool, it's just more fun to call it a swim for the kids) and it wasn't far from the ranch to just drive on down there. She called me back when she got there to tell me that there were ambulances & firetrucks there and another lil girl named Emily had drowned and wasn't breathing- I asked her to go put eyes on our girls and offer to take some of the kids back to the ranch; while waiting for her to call me back, I walked up front of my office and asked the ladies i work w/To pray, that even tho' it wasn't my Emily - to pray like it was. By the time I got back to my office my cell was ringing, she said to me "Susan - it's your Emily, they had a helicopter there to life- flight her to the childrens trauma center, she had gotten in to the deep end of the pool and had been overwhelmed while trying to get to the ladder, a 9 yr old little girl and her not much older sister were the ones who saw Emily at the bottom of the pool, the 9 yr old dove down and pulled her out by her ankle. I was told that her eyes were rolled back in her head, her lips were blue, and her mouth was wide open - she was not breathing. One of the ladies, a camp leader who hadn't given or taken CPR since 11th grade (she's my age) began CPR on Emily until the medics could take over.
I can't say for sure everything that went thru my mind on the ride to the hospital, but I do know that I was praying to God to spare her for me! I am not Abraham she was not Isaac, and I am pretty sure I couldn't take losing my daughter! She's all I've got!
When I finally got to see Emily, after spending a grueling 45 minutes filling out paperwork at the ER desk and watching peoples faces as they came in and out of the back room, she was wrapped around a nurse with tubes coming in/out of her & wearing breathing things? The nurse wrapped her around me and I just sat there holding her and praying she was still there in that little almost 6 year old body. I began asking Emily the first of two little questions that I had asked her since she began speaking. I asked her over and over again "Emily, who's got you?" until she finally answered me in a tiny little voice without opening her eyes "You" my hope was lifted, so I began asking her the second question, "Emily, who's got us? it took about another 30 minutes with me softly repeating the question before she barely opened her left eye and looked at me and said Jesus. That's all I needed to be reassured that my little girl was still there, and I knew from that moment on, no matter what it took - God had it and we would be find. It was a long 18 hrs before the doctor came in to review x-rays of her lungs & tummy from the night before to the morning after. That red-headed foreign accented, bubbly little lady looked at those x-rays turned and looked at me and said "You are blessed, I am sending you home." We went back to the horse camp to show those kids that she was okay and we haven't looked back since. Emily was in cheer camp the following Wednesday and swimming again on July 4th in the river. 

Thanks go out to some very wonderful friends & prayer warriors who were there for us when Emily was in the hospital recovering from her "near drowning" incident (that's what the hospital papers call it) and I finally got to stand up in church and give a praise report testimony on just how amazing our God is and how fast He hastens to answer the earnest prayers of His children, I am very blessed and Emily is 100% and her insurance covered everything - When God does it He does it 100% all the way through the whole thing to the end. I give to Him all the glory & marvel as I watch my daughter grow.