This past week kept Andrea and I on our toes. It is stressful enough to approach the due date alone, but add in a complication to the pregnancy and things turn tense.
The little guy’s heart rate was dropping enough to alarm our doctor. We started making two trips a week to the office to monitor the baby’s heart rate. Each visit Andrea had the discussion about inducing early and was reminded about the possibility of having to have a cesarean section done. Neither of the options thrilled us. We were instructed to keep tally of the baby’s movements everyday. My mother-in-law found us a monitor which we used at home to keep an eye on his heart rate for added peace of mind. After a week of monitoring, his heart rate started to behave. Did it end up being nothing? Yes. Was it a bit scary for us new parents? You bet.
During that week I couldn’t receive a text from Andrea without cringing. I just knew it was the message that told me she was on her way to the hospital. I lived in fear. Not a paralyzing fear, but the worrisome kind, which is just as debilitating. It is interesting to me now, after having a week to look back, to see I was battling another fear just before our fiasco. The fear of uncertainty. The weight of a father’s responsibility had been intimidating me. There is way too much for me to screw up. So much of what Andrea and I will encounter over our son’s life will be beyond our control. That is when I was reminded of a comforting truth when God handled our son’s hear rate scare. Yes, it is out of my control. My life is chaotic, but my God is order incarnate. He is the only fixed point in which all things revolve around. Just as God created my son’s life, He will also sustain it.
Does that relieve me of my responsibilities as a father? Not hardly. Will every situation come out as a happy ending? I won’t bet on it. I am still called to action and I am not entitled to having my favored outcome. It does, however, relieve me of the fear of failure. God handles all things. It’s not so much that God won’t give me anything I can’t handle, it’s more like God will never give me anything He can’t handle. There will be some significant challenges ahead, some may of which may even break my heart. Whether I am in desperate prayer for my son’s life or wondering how we will survive one more sleepless night, I just have to remember to trust God. Trusting God is ultimately saying, “You’ve got this.”
Thank you Father for my wife and son’s health. Thank you for reminding me of your sovereignty.
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