Had to Share

We received this e-mail today . . .

I read the blog entry today on Spina Bifida. . . I remembered something someone told me during my pregnancies that I found very comforting. . . I was fretting about being sick and knowing that I hadn’t taken as good of care of my body as I should during pregnancy and she very matter-of-factly said, “Women in Africa have healthy babies.” There are so many women who live in impovrished, starving, drought ridden areas of the world who have full term pregnancies and “healthy” babies. The majority of woman around the world who have babies without any defects are not getting their basic nutritional needs met….let alone getting a double dose of folic acid.

There is no logical explanation as to why millions of women in malnourished countries have healthy babies, while Annabelle has so many problems and complications. We all desperately want to believe that comfort can be found in believing that we have some control over these situations. Unfortunately our false self-assurances of thinking we should be able to do something to get to the desired outcome can also lead to unnecessary guilt. The reality is that we just don’t have control over most of the things of this world, even though we desperately want to believe that we do. When we look to our ability to “create” or bring about a certain outcome in these big issues, we most often will fall short and be left filling disappointed and even hopeless. Our hope and confidence is in The Creator, not in our ability to control circumstances or make things happen. You didn’t cause Annabelle’s condition, just as God didn’t cause Annabelle’s condition. It just happened. We live in a broken world, but thankfully we have the strength of Christ to work miracles on our behalf and fill us with the strength, hope, and purpose that we could never have on our own. And we find comfort in the hope of knowing that someday God will restore this world to his original perfect design and we will live in it together with perfectly restored bodies, hearts, minds, and spirits. We also find comfort in the knowledge that even though bad things happen in this world, he will never leave us or forsake us. Praise God!! He will sustain you and your family.

Thank you.