Growing Up

It occurred to me as I was thinking about a post that perhaps I have changed in these years I've been claiming belief in a risen Savior.

Almost six years ago, there was a woman who would walk on a treadmill in the middle of a Michigan winter making a list of the reasons she would be a better mom than the unwed pregnant girl who was in her employ. She would cry to God about fairness and rightness and she would ask over and over "Why me?" I remember her saying through tears, "I'm supposed to be one of yours, and this shouldn't happen to one of yours."

She had just lost a baby at 22 weeks. He was her second pregnancy. The first one ended in a miscarriage at 10 weeks. It had been a long year.

This summer has been a difficult summer to say the least. I've prayed for protection and preservation of these two lives entrusted to us on the way to the dentist, and through surgery on little hands. Most recently, I became the last person to hold my son after an injury. He was loaded into an ambulance, alone. Abigail, worried and scared, chose the lap of a stranger while we waited for the EMTs. I waited in the room next to theirs in the hospital and I tried to figure out what happened, I thanked God that we were ok, I prayed for preservation.

Granted, death did not enter into this story and so the deep grief of loss hasn't descended upon me. But this woman has retained a peace that is indescribable. She isn't asking why this happened, or making lists of reasons it shouldn't have happened to her. She is just happy with her God and grateful for the life He has given.

Occasionally, I wonder if I'm really being perfected. As I am impatient with Abigail and Simon, and snarly with telemarketers, I wonder if I am truly a new creation or if I will ever be controlled by the new creation. I don't want six-weeks of accidents to prove it but since they happened I can say that He is working on me and I can see it.

Please know this isn't meant to be a pat-myself-on-the-back post but truly one about Him fulfilling His promises. Oh how He keeps His word!