Minister (verb.): attend to the needs of someone

Here we are, the year has quickly gotten away from us. We are already on November’s story, and we can’t believe we are wrapping up our second year. These next stories have such a special place in our hearts as we are making changes in the new year, and these will be the last of its kind. We aren’t going anywhere, just bringing on new beginnings for Her Story. This story is also a special one to me as this lady is a sweet friend of mine and now of Emily’s. She is extremely genuine and a great encourager, all around. Emily and I are fortunate to know her. So let’s get this started…

Her name is Melanie Gilliam

We met Melanie at Panera Bread and were able to snag the first comfy chairs we saw, so we could be all cozy during our conversation. We love restaurants that present the opportunity for great conversations. We all got to cozy up in our chairs and Melanie got a warm cup of coffee to start our night off right. As we usual do, we asked Melanie to tell us a little bit about her to share with you all. She answered, “I am a wife, a mother, and a teacher. I have been a wife for 16 years now (wow!). I’ve been a mothered for 13 years. I’ve been a teacher for almost 15 years. I’ve had three pregnancies and I have two children from those. I have a thirteen year old and an eleven year old, that’s going on about forty! I’m a pastor’s wife, so everything is always up and moving, constantly. It’s always crazy in our lives, but we love being in ministry. That’s pretty much me in a nutshell.”

It never takes long for me to get deep with people, especially the ones that I know. Right away, we asked Melanie to discuss with us one of the hardest things she has gone through in her life. This question was particularly close to Melanie’s heart as this is a lot of what she wanted to share with you all. Melanie went through a hard season that affected all aspects of her life. We are going to start from the beginning, and we hope this can be an encouragement to you.

Melanie shared, “TJ and I had been married for about three years and we started wanting to have kids. We tried for a while and nothing was happening, so we tried for a little while longer and I finally got pregnant. We were doing really well, and TJ was in his first staff meeting when I had to call him to tell him to meet me at the hospital because something was wrong. We ended up losing our first child to a miscarriage. We walked through that together and it was extremely awkward because we were so young in our marriage. We didn’t know what that process looked like. Honestly, I don’t know if we truly walked through it enough. So a couple of months later, we ended up getting pregnant again. It was a great pregnancy, great birth, and he was a great, easy baby. He could do everything with us. Several months after he was born, low and behold, it was time to move again (where ministry always calls). We were moving to Harrison, AK and Trey was only a week away from being a year old, and I found out I was pregnant with number two. There I was with the moving company there, packing boxes and I decided to go to Walmart to take a little test and found out I was pregnant. I didn’t have job where we were moving, of course, TJ did, but we were moving to this new place the next day. I ended up getting a job offer, and had to tell them I was pregnant and that I would be missing the second half of school. That pregnancy went great and no major complications. I ended up having our daughter in January. She was great when we left the hospital, she was healthy. We had just had a huge ice storm that hit a week after we brought her home, so everything was shut down. During this same time, I realized she was not eating as much. I look back now and see pictures, and she looked horrible, but I didn’t know that at the time because she was just two weeks old. I ended up calling the on call nurse, and we decided on Monday, after the weekend, that I needed to take her in to the pediatrician. TJ went on to work, and yet again, he was in a staff meeting when I called him and told him that he needed to meet me at the pediatrician. I walked in and they took her from me at the doctor’s office and the nurse immediately looked out, took her pulse, and immediately went to get the doctor. Our doctor came in and looked at me before looking at her and said, ‘you know we are going to the hospital. She will be there a couple of days. It’s bad.’ and I had no idea that was what was going to happen. I mean I dropped Trey off at daycare and didn’t know that was where our day was going. Her pulse ox was below 70 percent at that point. I was standing their with the baby carrier when the ambulance was coming and they came through the back hallway with the stretcher. I was standing their with the car seat and newborn, asking if they needed the car seat, and asking what I could do. They wouldn’t let me drive her two blocks to the hospital. The nurse ended up riding with her, holding the oxygen mask over her face, which covered her entire head. I was standing there with an empty car seat when TJ walked in, and I didn’t know what to do, we just headed over the hospital. We get her in the hospital, at this point, she has less than 70 percent oxygen getting to her lungs and even less to her brain, she’s screaming and doesn’t want the mask on. She’s only two weeks old at this time. It was a small town hospital and they didn’t have anything that could fit her. They had to start an IV and they tried several times and could only get one started in her head. The doctor came to us and let us know they needed to incubate her, and then he explained that a helicopter was coming to airlift her to Children’s Hospital in Little Rock. We said okay. As we are standing there, I’m basically numb going through all this. All I could think of is that I have an 18 month old at daycare and I just didn’t know what to do about him either. I immediately called some of our youth in the youth group and they went and got Trey, fed him dinner and help kept him that evening. Looking back, if we wouldn’t have been so close to our youth group, we could have never done all that. They took care of it for us. So I’m standing there and my husband has lost it and all I’m thinking is that I have to hold it together. I’ve got to know what’s going on. All I remember the doors opening right after the helicopter landed, and guys and girls in red jumpsuits running down the hallway with a little buggy. I remember those guys and girls calling my doctor by his first name and they knew him, so it made me realize that it’s okay because he know them. They ended up having to change everything out on our daughter, which was a helpless moment because all we could do was stand against the wall and we couldn’t help her. They ended up taking her out to us and they were leaving with her. They told us to drive slow because we wouldn’t be able to see her right away when we got to the hospital anyways. Then, all I could about was I gotta pack. I didn’t know where we were going, what we were doing, there’s ice on the roads still, and I’ve got another baby at home. We ended up getting back to the house, the youth had packed all of our bags, and took care of our dogs. They are some amazing people. We ended up heading to Little Rock.”

The story does not end there, but Melanie talks to us about how their doctor, who they knew from church, didn’t think their daughter was going to make it. She mentioned that he had never seen a child’s oxygen level so low. Once they got to the hospital, Melanie talks about how lonely it can feel there, especially after visiting hours. After everyone has to leave, except parents, what do you do? Melanie and TJ took this time to learn and minister to the other parents around them. Melanie talks about how they decided to start talking to four other families that had kids in the same unit as their daughter. It became their thing to gather around together after hours, they would pray together, and talk about everything that was going on with their kids. She mentioned, of that group, they were the only ones who left with a child. She described that even after the loss of a child, some of the parents would still come back to the hospital to check on Melanie and TJ. She can look back on that time now, and see how God orchestrated all that. God had placed an amazing amount of people in their lives: their youth, the church they served at, both of their home churches, the doctors, and the social worker… she said they were all so amazing. Also, she can see that her and TJ were there to minister to others. She could see that this was all God. She knows she would’ve been a nervous wreck if it wasn’t for Him giving her the strength to get through it. This was just a part of their story for them. I could go on and on about how amazing Melanie and TJ are, but they truly bless each soul they come around. Emily and I couldn’t imagine going through all this, and not only coming out on the other side of this, but using this time to be servants for others. To end the story, their daughter ended up coming home after 16 days and the doctors said she would probably be about 6 months delayed, but if you know her now, you would say the opposite. She is as healthy as can be at eleven years old.

Even how amazing Melanie and TJ are, this would be such a hard thing to go through. I asked Melanie to give us some advice on how to keep your marriage strong after going through all that. She stated, “In whatever you do, don’t go away from each other. Stay there. No matter what. He did not understand what I went through with the miscarriage and he couldn’t handle that because he wanted to fix it and he couldn’t. Nor did I know, what I was going through either. During the whole time with everything, we leaned on each other. I saw where his weakness was and he saw where my weakness was and we balanced each other.”

Before we ended with our last question, we asked Melanie to share with us what has been one of the best things that she has been through. She discussed with us there’s a lot of things, but she talked about how sometimes the most rewarding thing to do is to watch and allow her husband be the minister he is called to be. She knows that she is in the background, but she finds it so rewarding to be his encourager and watch him be who he was made to be. She also discussed all the things she’s been able to be a part of in ministry, which has been a ton of amazing things.

To end our conversation, we asked Melanie to tell us her definition of beauty and if she found herself beauty. She answered, “My definition of beauty is the inside. It’s actions. It’s how you present yourself when you’re stressed, anxious and when you’re at the bottom. When you share that to others. I could be having the worst day in the world, and if someone is just kind, that shows more beauty than anything. And no, I don’t always find myself beautiful. Sometimes on the inside I feel worse because of the things I’m thinking in my head, but God uses those moments.”

We hope this was an encouraging story for each of you to read. Melanie is a delight of a human being, and it's a honor to know her and be encouraged by her. She truly walks in Faith, and ministers to others so well. Thank you, Melanie, for being a Rockstar and standing firm in what God has called you to be.

A special thank you to Emily, who takes these amazing photos. We are so happy that these images can allow you to see the rawness that occurs in these conversations. Another thanks to all you who read these post. We couldn't continue on without your encouraging words. We hope you continue to share these stories with your friends, as you never know who might have needed to read this story today. If you don't already, please follow us on social media (Instagram: @herstorybham Facebook: Her Story Bham).

Last but not least, if you have no already bought your ticket to our Her Story Celebration, please go ahead and do so now. The link is here below: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/her-story-celebration-tickets-52489934808

We can't wait to see each of you!