It's not the world that we expected to welcome our first child into.
A world of quarantine, minor panic, unknowns --- there's a page in the baby book that has the prompt "Major world events" to write about. Well, I know what that one's going to say --- coronavirus, COVID-19.
It goes moment by moment, day by day, how I react to getting ready to have a baby at a time that COVID-19 cases are probably going to peak in the U.S. I float between worry and faith.
When I have moments, or longer than moments, of doubt, I have a few things that I've been able to tell myself.
1. God loves this child more than I do. We haven't met our daughter yet, but we love her. Yet, as much as we love her, we have to realize that God loves her even more. I think that I have created her in my body, but I haven't. He has. He has stitched her together in my womb, and he created her intentionally, perfectly, exactly the way that he wanted.
2. God knows this girl already and has every day of her life mapped out already. That's so much more than I can say. I will spend the rest of my life getting to know this little girl, but God already knows what her personality will be and what each moment of her life will entail. He is so much bigger than me.
3. I never had control anyway. I think we like to think that when things are going smoothly, that we have control. In reality though, we didn't have control. Just because COVID-19 is spreading and making us feel out of control, it's really no different. We have always just been human, and God has always been the great God that is in control of everything. We just have to face it a bit more at the moment.
4. God knew this was going to happen. Although Nate and I didn't expect this would be the world that our daughter would be born into, and eight months ago we couldn't have seen it, God knew what was up ahead. He knew exactly what the world would be like.
I'm not saying things are going to be perfect. In fact, I think it's wrong to tell each other that everything will be fine and God will protect us all. This world is sinful, it's evil, it's sick. It's not what God wanted when he created it, but it's what the fall of humanity brought upon us. He could put a stop to all illness, to all disease, to all death --- but that would be the end of the world. If that's not where we're at, then it's not. That means that we trust God, no matter what happens. It means that if someone gets sick, that we pray for healing. However, if someone isn't healed, we pray that will be used for the good of God's kingdom.
Trusting God doesn't mean that we trust our lives will be perfect. That's not trust. That's using God like a genie. Trusting God means that we trust that good or bad, we can rely on him to get us through, for his grace to save us, for his grace to get through today and look positively at tomorrow, for the next world to be better than this one.
"I'm no longer a slave to fear; I am a child of God." That's what we sang at online church this morning, amid social distancing. We don't have to fear. We don't have to be anxious. Not because everything will be perfect, but because we know God will work things out perfectly...even if we don't see it or understand it.
The other song that keeps going through my head when I wake up at night is "Our God is greater. Our God is stronger. God, you are higher than any other. Our God is healer, awesome in power, our God, our God."
