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Sarah Marohl

Carrying Hope

Imagine the pressure, laughs Sarah Marohl. It’s a frigid December day in Sarah’s Rock Island neighborhood, not far from the Augustana College campus. With just a few weeks remaining in her second pregnancy, Sarah reflects on the new life she carries.

“I’ve always loved Advent, the anticipation, the excitement,” says Sarah. “I can’t help thinking about Mary. I’m probably double her age when she had Jesus. I have been through this before. But Mary was young, she was unwed, and she had been told that she’s carrying the son of God.”

“Imagine the pressure!”

Sarah, in comfy fur-lined slippers, is nestled on a sofa in her warm home. “Mary had to be so much heartier to survive. At the same time, she had her faith in God,” says Sarah, remembering Mary’s song of praise (Luke 1:46-55). “She knew God was there to be with her and to lead her, that she wasn’t alone.”

Sarah Marohl. Mary, mother of Jesus. Elizabeth, mother of John. From the beginning of time, “pregnancy has been among the most ordinary, common things. And yet it is still one of the most extraordinary experiences,” says Sarah. “It’s equally amazing to think about Jesus as God coming to earth in the same way we did — minus the virgin birth,” she laughs.

In the biblical narrative — and today — pregnancy and childbirth are images of divine blessing. Yet Sarah knows, too, the disappointment when months pass without conception.

Flash back 13 years. Sarah is newly married to Matthew Marohl, our associate pastor. She has just celebrated her 23rd birthday. She is perfectly healthy. She’s working as a waitress to make ends meet while Matt is in seminary. Suddenly she develops a noticeable limp. Pain shoots through her feet and lower legs. And so begins the “strangest, longest nightmare.”

Something seems to be terribly wrong with Sarah. She enters the Mayo Hospitals in Rochester, Minnesota, her hometown. And after a battery of tests, the diagnosis is sobering: Bacterial Endocarditis.
Bacteria are eating holes in the walls of Sarah’s heart.

The situation is grave. Matt travels back and forth between Rochester and a Twin Cities suburb, where he has just begun his pastoral internship year in June. Sarah’s mother is able to stay close to the hospital.

“There were many days when a doctor would tell my mom to ‘get her husband here. We don’t know if she’ll make it through the night… or day.’”

Bacteria break off from Sarah’s heart and travel
to her brain, causing a series of strokes and leaving her — for a time — with the mental capacity of a three-year-old.

The people of Sarah’s home congregation in Rochester pray without ceasing for her. Hospital personnel encourage her. Even Sarah, as gravely ill as she is, retains some of her inherent optimism. Every time someone asks how she is feeling, she responds, “Pretty good.”

The surgery, by one of Mayo’s finest, is experimental. The holes in Sarah’s heart will be patched with Gore-Tex and Dacron. Sarah is amused that this is the durable stuff of hiking boots and raincoats.

Sarah requests pepperoni pan pizza from Pizza Hut for her “last supper” before surgery. It tastes so good after weeks of hospital food. Tomorrow a surgeon will hold her heart in his hands. “I told Matt and my parents that I’m really ready for the surgery. I will either feel a lot better and get to live longer and be the wife of Matt and maybe get to be a mom. But if now is my time to die, I can go and live with Jesus and I’ll be out of pain and I can accept it. What I can’t do is keep living in so much pain.”

Twelve days later, Sarah and her patched heart take their leave of the hospital. She goes home without the pain killers and antibiotics that have sustained her. “People in my Rochester church literally came up to touch me,” remembers Sarah. “They treated me like I was a miracle in their presence. And I felt like one.”

“God is the great physician,” says Sarah. “But having my parents stake out a home in Rochester when they first got married, and having a skilled cardiologist save my life — I am so thankful.”

Early on, Sarah had “placed value in the things that mattered.” Like Mary, she had faith in God’s presence. She counted on her family’s love. “Going through this wasn’t a huge life transformation, but it did restore my faith in the human spirit.”

Sarah marvels in the “complexities and intricacies of the human body.” Over time, strength returned to Sarah’s body. Her heart beat steadily. Sarah and Matt had “no reason to doubt if we’d have a baby.” They delayed the start of their family for many years, and then encountered difficulty when they tried to get pregnant. But when the Marohls arrived in the Quad Cities three years ago, Sarah was two weeks pregnant.

“We were so excited but a little leery. Could this really develop into a baby we get to have?”

On this December 2009 day, with big-sister-to-be Noa (2½) happily absorbed in a stack of books, Sarah says, “To think, we can get pregnant through conception, and from then on, the body knows what to do, and forms a complex human being. It’s truly an act of God!”

In Advent scripture, we hear from Elizabeth and Mary — two pregnant women of the ancient world. And we know Sarah Marohl, a woman in our midst. The advent of new life is a disturbance to their bodies’ normal functioning — and it is a sign of God’s blessing.

Sarah’s doctor tells her that this baby may well greet the world on Christmas Day. Hopeful expectancy gives way to the wonder of birth. Love is on the way.

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"Pray for me that I do not loosen my grip on the hands of Jesus even under the guise of ministering to the poor." ~Mother Theresa