Coal into Diamonds

Since Amariah was born early in the morning, we only had to spend one night in the hospital with her, so I was discharged when she was a day and a half old. The next morning I woke up and was feeling great physically and emotionally, so I went on with a normal morning routine. I was in the kitchen warming some food up when all of a sudden I felt lightheaded, dizzy, and lost vision in my left eye. It was one of the craziest things I have experienced with my body. Frantically I started searching for my discharge papers, because I remember them mentioning something like this. After I found them I called my doctor right away, which is what the papers instructed, and he told me to go the emergency room immediately. I tried to convince him to allow me to come to his office, since I had a two day old baby and didn't want to expose her to the germs in the ER, but he insisted that was where I needed to be and casually mentioned something about a stroke due to post delivery preclampsia. At that moment, I freaked out a little bit because during a point in my pregnancy they were worried about this.

We made it down to the ER and had quite the frustrating experience. The other local hospital had experienced a chemical leak and was shut down, so everyone was being directed to the ER of our hospital, so it was crazy busy. With all of this being said, they did test upon test and ruled out all major post delivery complications and attributed it to a migraine (which I get frequently). 

This experience illuminated some faulty thinking that I had regarding God. See, during my whole pregnancy I was fearful of having a baby that had some sort of complications or serious medical problems. I thought that God had already given me two healthy babies, so I ran a higher risk of having one that wasn't healthy. How twisted is that thinking? That God would only allow me to have so much good in my life before He authored some bad. So when this experience happened, my mind immediately jumped to the worst possible diagnosis because I felt like it was what I deserved. How is it that I could think this? God loves me and has good plans for my life. Even if he allowed me to experience challenges in labor or the birth of a child with serious complications, it would be okay.

I know several people that have children with severe medical issues and all of them have said that their lives are better off because of it. Would they have ever planned for those things? Absolutely not, but they are better people because of the limitations of their children. So often we run from things that we are scared of, but don't realize that those things can become the deepest growing areas of our lives. That God can use those areas to shape our lives in deeper, more meaningful ways than we could ever realize.   Some of the most amazing people that I have met in life, are people that have embraced their circumstances (good and bad) and have allowed God to use those. It is a messy process, but it is a worthwhile process.

I will never be able to fully understand the horrible things that happen in this world. I will never be able to comprehend why innocent people are victimized in horrible ways. I will never be able to understand why sicknesses and illnesses happen. So often we blame those things on God. I have been there and done that in my life. The fact of the matter is this. God is good. He is love. He has incredible plans for each and every single one of our lives. Even when we don't understand, when we doubt, when we are afraid, when we feel like our heart is in a million pieces, we can find rest and peace in knowing that God is good and that He is in control.

I read this quote on someone's Facebook or Pinterest the other day and it really seems to fit: