HEARTBEAT By James Flaskamp
I remember hearing my daughter’s heartbeat for the first time. Each reassuring pulse whispering that everything was going to be alright. As I watched her tiny 12-week-old body dance in a ballroom of amniotic fluid, my wife and I captivated by the black and white pixels knitted together on the ultrasound screen, the same way God had knit together the life He had entrusted to us. The technician told us Ava’s heart had been beating since she was about three weeks old. The tears made a charge from my heart straight to my eyes and overcame my pride. I cried in that ultrasound room holding hands with my wife and didn’t care who saw because the power of LIFE was infinitely stronger than my insecurities. I wasn’t always this way. The years have changed me from what I was. Each passing year’s wisdom coming in waves of experiences and revelations bringing me to a destination I’ve never been before and never will be again. Like a needle moving slowly across the million little grooves in a
