Grace full mama

Well, it happened. It has happened before, but considering the circumstances and the blunt innocence with which my eleven year old daughter asks me questions, it was harder to answer this time.

“God wants what is best for all of his children, right?”

“Right, sweetheart,” I have listen, half answer… a skill most mothers have mastered over the busy years.

“Well then why did he let all of that happen to little Sadie? I mean… she didn’t do anything wrong.”

Let me back up. Sadie is my three week old daughter. She was so anticipated, so loved before she was even born. Within half an hour of birth Sadie was very unexpectedly rushed to the NICU, and then transferred to a level one NICU in another hospital. She had pulmonary hypertension, and the fight to save her life was urgent and brutal. She was ventilated for almost a week, and spent almost two weeks in the NICU. She is home now, but we are not out of the woods. It has been a terrifying ride, but she is so very, very worth it.

“Well then why did he let all of that happen to little Sadie? I mean… she didn’t do anything wrong.”

Maybe the words hit me in the chest because I was thinking them to, somewhere down really deep, where I don’t look very often. Why my baby? What did I do wrong? Why did she need to spend the first five days of her life hooked up to tubes and medically paralysed so that I could barely touch her or comfort her. What long term ways will that lack of bonding in the beginning affect her? Where were you, God?

Kids have a way of asking the questions that we refuse to look at. So I dug deep into my wounded soul.

“Because this isn’t home, sweetheart. Because heaven is home. We have an enemy here. Bad things happen here. But God can do amazing things through the hard stuff. That is when we really realise that we need him and we hit our knees. That is when the rubber meets the road, and we have to decide if we only love him when life goes the way we want it to, or if we love him all the time, no matter what. We feel his presence bigger, and more, when we are in the valleys than any other time. The hard things are what tests our faith and makes it real. Like pressure with diamonds, or fire with gold.”

My daughter nodded. Apparently my answer made sense to her; but she had set of an earthquake of thought in my own mind. Her honest question made me examine myself, my self pity, my angst at God for the ordeal we went through and are still going through.

And so I choose. I choose in the face of it not being easy. I choose to trust him.

“And if it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” Daniel 3:18

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

“In everything give thanks: for this is the will of Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

As the black dog of PPD hounds my door with his looming shadow, as self pity tries to take my hand and my attention, as the enemy would like to be an opportunist, I choose Jesus. I choose to believe him. I choose to pull into him, under the shelter of his wings. I choose to teach my children to pull into the father, not away from him when things get hard.