I went into the doctors that one morning, just a few mornings ago, almost certain I had a hernia. It resulted from... I'm not sure, to be honest. Really, really light training, the kind that my body is now so trained for and used to that it does not even generate soreness. And somehow, someway, something else tore besides the abdominal muscle wall, and the doctors tell me I may never be able to have children as a result. So much changes in just a day. Is that really fair? I go from perfectly healthy, to waiting on multiple surgeries, stemming from injuries that I don't even remember happening. I can't do my job, I can't do anything but take painkillers and go to countless appointments. Is that fair? I didn't think my story was supposed to go this way. No one saw this coming.
Oh yeah, and is it fair to her? The first week we start dating, I have to call her and tell her the bad news from the doctor. "At least it's not the cancer they initially thought, but it's still pretty bad. We may never have kids. Do you still want to do this? Does this change 'Us'?" She's still with me, never wavering in her commitment. I love her so much- We're getting married. But to have her walk with me through all this? Why couldn't I have faced this before we started dating? Why is she subject to the pain of the uncertainties that the medical field brings? How is that fair in any way? And to immediately have her dreams - not just my dreams of being a father- but her dreams of giving birth to OUR very own children... to have these dreams immediately jeopardized. Is that fair?
Yes, it is fair. I don't believe in this world that I come to the table with any prerequisites or demands or rights, other than what I have earned, and what I have been given by God, and who he says I am. Certainly, perfect health isn't listed anywhere that I can find. I've done all that I can to take care of my body, and the doctors are working as hard as they can to give us this chance to have children. The rest- it's up to him. This is his story, and I don't see any reason to think that he has left us during a season of life with lots of cloudiness and storms. I'm a realist- the chances are low that I'll ever be able to have kids, and even though it's explicitly his will that humans reproduce, only time will tell if he bestows that gift to us specifically. I ask him each day to fix me, and give her this gift of motherhood, but in the end, I don't care. She doesn't either. This tragic turn of events in a seemingly storybook romance: It is fair- it's fair because he is who he says he is, and that's all that matters. Let's say the doctors are right- this immensely interwoven desire to produce offspring and raise and nurture our very own, has now been torn from our grasp, never to be enjoyed. Does that somehow reflect upon God? Yes, yes it does- it does in the grace the doctors and co-workers are showing me, on the love that we are choosing to walk in with one another, her and I, in spite of uncertainties, in the support of family and friends. It's all a gift and a reflection of a God who chooses to be so deeply personal with her and I, and when we turn off our phones and shut down the business of today to listen, even as tears are falling, he's there.
So I can confidently say that I don't care what the doctors say, or if they're right or wrong. I know him, and I'm not ashamed of him whom I know. He says he'll be with me, and that he loves me. Sounds fair enough to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment