Monday, April 1, 2013

What am I learning?


What am I learning?  How is my faith being stretched?  

I am not one of those people who boldly ask God to, “ Break me”.... or “shape me, even if it hurts”. I am fully aware that God is capable of doing anything that He wants or desires for the best.  I am just not a person who seeks suffering.  

I would rather spend time with friends, go on vacations, have happy family gatherings, and all of those pleasant things in life.  Why would I want to look for trouble, or ask for trouble?  I like things to be smooth and easy sailing.  

When I first realized the diagnosis of Josiah, a dear friend and mentor said that even this news, is for my good.  How could this be?  How could God allow so many of the pregnant people around me to have healthy babies that they will grow up and grow old and will likely die, far after their parents.  The Bible says, that “all things work together for the good of those who trust God and are called according to his purposes”. ( Rom 8:28 ) All things.... even disease, sickenss, and in this congenital deformities?  

I am no scholar.  Most of my historical testimony is based on my experience with God.  Who God has been to me, and how I have experienced God.  Throughout college, I added to this faith with some study of apologetics and evidence that supported my beliefs, but at the core of my faith is the personal relationship that I have with Christ.  The sense of His presence as I pray, and recognizing his providential arrangements of my life circumstances.  

The first few weeks after the news from the doctors about our baby, I was very numb.  I still am, to some extent.  We were not planning on Number 4, in fact, we were actively planning against it.  :)  When we spoke with the geneticist, he said that it is very possible that this particular egg or sperm had an extra set of the chromosome #13 since we were babies in our mother’s belly.  The chances of this baby forming in this way, is very unlikely.  The odd’s are 1 in 10,000... some say 1 in 15,000.  So I am left with some great questions, that will likely never be answered on this side of eternity.  

I know that grief is a process, and maybe I am not at the “anger” stage yet.  I hope that I don’t go through that, because I am experiencing great peace in knowing that for some reasons that are beyond me, this is in fact providential.  I am settling in on some ideas:

all life is precious, even life that is considered “deformed” or “abnormal”.
who decides what is beautiful?  
the easy road, is not always the best road.
“In this life, you will have trouble”.... we were never promised a life of ease and comfort.  
Even life that is brief, can have great significance and meaning.

These are just a few of the ideas that have been swimming around in my head.  It has been a challenging few weeks.  The mornings are generally filled with lots of activity and a reasonable amount of hope.  When fatigue settles in the evenings, the sadness catches up with me.  Most nights, there are tears.  As my stomach grows and I feel his little feet kicking me stomach and stretching out, as he is safe in the womb for now.... the attachment grows.  This is our child and we love him!  

If often feels like the world is continuing around me at the same pace, but I just can not keep up.   I am at peace with this, in knowing that for a season my life will different.  Our family will be different.  Different is not necessarily bad, it is just something that we have been called to walk through.  We are trying to do it with as much grace as possible, knowing that no person really knows what the future holds, and we are no different.  

Since Ashley was born 6 years ago, I have been very possessive with my children.  What I mean by this, is that I felt like God made them, and now they are ours.  I remember reading a blog of a family that went through a similar situation about a year ago.   The story was my WORST fear.... having a child sick, and then the child dying.  I had never met this couple, but remember saying to God, “please never take one of my children”.  Even my prayer was possessive!  The truth is, that we have been entrusted with them, but they are really not “ours”.  They are gifts that we care for for, but they were created by God and they belong to God.  

I would say that we are very sad, but not without Hope.  Hope that God is strong and powerful enough to heal Josiah if He chooses.  He is also strong and powerful enough to hold us in our grief, if his life is brief.  No matter what the outcome,  we will never be the same..........