For the most part.

For the most part I really don't have a problem working with babies in the NICU. I think this has a lot to do with controlling what I let myself think about and reminding myself that its not all about me. I don't mean that facetiously- I really do have to remind myself that other people have problems that far exceed mine. It's not hard to do that sometimes, especially when I'm looking at parents desperately asking the doctor if their baby born at 28 weeks is going to be okay.


Like I said, for the most part I'm totally fine. 


However, sometimes its really difficult not to let myself wonder why someone who has had 6 abortions and abused crystal meth during her pregnancy is allowed to have her baby and I'm not allowed to have mine. 


I don't understand it, but the great news is... I don't have to understand it. During my pregnancy this was a passage that I kept coming back to: 


 ²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? ²⁸And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³²For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
 ³⁴ "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
- Matthew 6:25-34


At the time, I thought the passage as meant to reassure me that everything would be fine with the baby. The first time we had a sonogram I was so incredibly nervous that something would be wrong- I read this in my Bible that morning and instantly felt a sense of peace. We were able to see the heartbeat that day, but I know now that I didn't feel a sense of peace because everything would be okay with the baby... I felt a sense of peace because everything would be okay. The Lord was in control. I didn't understand it then and I only have the faintest of better understanding now, but nevertheless I have a better understanding. 


I could keep typing a book about this, but the point is the fact that God is in control. I could drive myself crazy wondering what if I had done this or what if I had done that and I can get bitter and upset and, if I really wanted to, I could question God. But that's not going to make it any better. The only thing that makes it better is trusting in the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God. 


That doesn't necessarily make it easier and it doesn't mean that I am not so, so sad, but it does mean that I am free from the bondage of wondering, "What if...?" There is no what if, only what now?