The Lord has left us Irene

MILA'S EXPERIENCE 

My name's Mila and I'm from Loreto. I'm here because I owe don Marco  and his community a debt of gratitude since they have prayed for my family and for Irene. I'm here above all because I owe the Lord a great debt, greater than the one we all have for being saved by His Son Jesus's sacrifice. My gratitude to the Lord is even greater than yours. After the experience I and my family have had this year, I can now realize the greatness of God's love. In fact in January we have run the risk of losing Irene, born few months ago. In December of last year (2006) Irene fell ill, she was just two months old and it seemed a normal virus.We went to Salesi hospital where they diagnosed a bronchitis which is quite common in winter. But Irene, after a day in the paediatrics ward, was taken to the intensive care unit  and that in spite of the big doses of cortisone and antibiotic that they had given her. When Iren entered the intensive care unit not even us parents could stay. The first thing I did when I could't hold Irene in my arms was starting sending text messages to the friends of the Renewal group of pray and to our relatives to ask for help and prays. After two days Iren got worse and the doctors didn't know what to say for the future: she was on the danger list.The progress of the bronchitis has been unforeseen and Irene went on with the respirator. Whilst the other children who were in the intensive care unit were discharged, Irene was stationary and she wasn't getting better.I know that when you pray for someone you want to know how it ends up; the most part of my text messages were: “she is stationary and seriously ill, keep on praying!” I must say it has been a hard period because it has lasted for a whole month, during which the Lord put us to the test. After so many years of faith it's true that when the Lord  puts you to the test, the test is right for you. I thought: “ We will pray and the Lord will listen to us” and I also thought: “The Lord is asking something great. Irene's life”. Irene had been really wished because I had two little twin boys and I wanted a girl and now it seemed incomprehensible that God wanted her back.I asked God to make us understand. The Lord has always been close to us with his words. The prayers of our friends have been a great comfort to us, this is a little miracle as well. That has been a month of Grace to me. I will remember it as a month in which God has come to live with us in our house. My husband and I have prayed together for the first time: every morning at the mass, twice the rosary. I had prayed so much the Lord in order to pray together with my husband and now it was happening. The Lord listened to our prayers just when Irene's life was in danger. He had given us words of hope and kept on giving us words of hope. God has repaid our prayers. I don't know what the initial plan was, I just know that He has listened to us. At least one hundred people were praying with us. The text messages which I was sending to my friends were about 50 a day and I knew that besides don Marco his entire community was praying. The nuns and the teachers with the children were praying as well and I thank all of them. I used to call them th Praying Army that was fighting the good battle with me when I couldn't pray as I was mad. I knew that there was somebody else praying God for me and It was important not to give up. That was one of the miracles. The greatest miracle was praying with my husband, as this ha sreally strenghtened the Sacrament of our matrimony. I strongly suggest this to every married couple: find the time to pray all together. God has followed us through our life with his word and with his presence. During the month of January God has been with us every day, I coudn't do anything else apart thanking him for my family. We will announce his wonders as he has left us Irene.