Blessing of Uncertainty

There have been times when I wished I could catch a glimpse of my future. When I was single, I thought the loneliness would be easier to handle if I knew for certain that at some point I would be married. Similarly, when I was in the middle of a six year journey to motherhood, I longed for the assurance that we would eventually become parents through giving birth or adoption. This past summer I had a lengthy hospitalization due to pregnancy complications. The hardest part of that ordeal was that I only saw my two children and husband for about one hour a week. I went from being at home with my two-year-old and four-year-old almost all the time to being separated from them almost all of the time for almost fourteen weeks. It struck me this summer how grateful I was that I did not know what that pregnancy and NICU experience was going to be like. We really wanted a third child, but had we known ahead of time what difficulties we would face during the pregnancy, I think we would have decided that our family was complete with two children. As I hold my sweet baby in my arms, I am very, very glad we did not know ahead of time. He is absolutely worth everything our family went through last summer. As it says in Proverbs 16:9, "In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps."