After an hour drive to the hospital, navigating the parking structure, filling out new patient paper work, playing in the waiting room, waiting nervously through the ultrasound, then nervously for the technician to return from speaking with the radiologist we finally heard the words we'd been waiting all week for: "Everything's normal, your daughter's head is just larger than average." It was like a weight had been lifted off my husband and I, now we could finally make jokes about the size of our daughters melon laugh and not worry. She didn't have a life long condition she just had a big head, what a relief.
I often imagine what God's original plan was like, after creating a perfect world with no death, no sickness, no diseases, no genetic disorders, no need for worry only unbridled joy. Back when everything was still "very good," back before sin entered the world; there was no need to worry about these things. Child birth and rearing would have been met with joy, no trepidation, even no need for discipline!
That's what God wanted for us. God never intended for my husband and I to spend a week worrying if our daughter would need to see a pediatric surgeon so a shunt could be placed in her head to drain excess fluid on her brain. God never intended my oldest daughter to go through bouts of ultra-sounds and x-rays, and spend time in a harness, then a brace to make sure her hips develop correctly.
God never intended for our family to never meet three precious souls that were brought into being but never knew life. God never intended mothers to loose their babies after 8 months of carrying them, or loose them in infancy. God never intended the pain that comes with loosing any member of our family or close friends.
God didn't want that for us, and yet that's the world we live in. That's the world we live in because of sin.
So can I praise him even when things aren't the way I had planned? Yes, absolutely. Do I want trials in my life? No! But at least I know they don't come from God. At least I know what trials truly are, a consequence of sin. At least I know God can use these things to work for good and bring glory to his Name even if they are not from Him.
"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. " James 1:17
