by Santiago Chavez
The polite, well-dressed woman showed us photographs on her mobile phone of a famous South Korean pop music singer, comparing her beauty to our baby daughter’s. I have always thought our daughter had her mother’s great looks, but I was still amused by the lady’s star-struck insistence that briefly interrupted our dinner at a local noodle shop. I guess there was some resemblance between our daughter and the singer.
Our miracle baby was not supposed to be attractive enough to cause such pleasant interruptions. Shortly after her conception, a routine ultrasound detected some tissue redundancies in the back of her neck. These and other cardiac details indicated our baby may have a birth defect and possibly Down syndrome.
After the doctor explained that possibility, an amniocentesis was offered to us to confirm it. We asked about the risks of the procedure, which included possible injury to the baby and a spontaneous abortion. It did not take us more than three minutes to decline the test. “She may be born with birth defects,” the doctor politely insisted.
We replied, undaunted and bordering on rudeness, “We don’t care. We’re going to love her no matter how she comes.”
We gained strength from our conviction about the sanctity of human life and started preparing ourselves for what could come in the next few months. Every night we prayed that God would give us the strength and wisdom to accept His will for our lives, no matter what happened.
Our daughter arrived at the right time and was a perfect little bundle of joy: ten perfect toes and ten perfect fingers.
Submitting to God’s will
People face big and small decisions to honor God almost every day. It is not always easy. It certainly wasn’t for us.
Although our experience does not compare to what our Lord suffered, we can gain strength from His example on that night after the Last Supper. Though He asked that the cup of suffering be taken from Him, Jesus submitted to the Father’s will in the garden (Luke 22:42). The plan was determined in eternity sometime before creation (John 3:16).
We decide to align our will with God’s every day, not just when difficult situations present themselves. We pray that, like soldiers in a well-rehearsed military maneuver, we will execute the action of surrender when the circumstance presents itself and that we will hear from our Father “Well done!”
Facing tough times
As followers of the risen Christ, we have personally come to understand that the rewards of submitting to God’s will in tough circumstances are countless in this life and immeasurable in the coming kingdom. Thankfully, I am currently at a high point in my life. It is not always easy to see the benefits of accepting the cup of difficulties when someone is navigating in the midst of them (2 Corinthians 4:8-10).
Struggling single parents come to mind. They live by faith as they navigate from one challenge to another with a few short-lived harbors of security between financial, emotional, and health storms.
A single mother recently approached me and pleaded, “Please pray for me, brother.”
“What is the matter?” I asked.
Tears filled her eyes. “Just please pray for me.” Her words softly escaped through a quivering lower lip. The Lord knows exactly what we prayed for with this struggling sister. We recall that He said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5), but the proximity of rescue can be hard to remember when the waves of the rough sea of life threaten to drown us.
Another mother recently shared about how God used health issues experienced by her long-awaited son to produce spiritual growth in her and in her marriage. Her boy’s health challenges are ongoing, but she is faithful. She stood before the congregation as a strong warrior, smiling but tearful as she proclaimed God’s faithfulness.
Yet another example. An unfortunate brother who contracted and survived breast cancer shared how he could feel our prayers as he endured awkward exams, surgery, and chemotherapy. His family has a history of the disease. He is currently free of it, but his two sisters weren’t as fortunate. One lost her battle with breast cancer, and the other is barely hanging on to life.
These are all examples of courageous believers stretching forward to grasp God’s promise of eternal healing. It is a privilege to walk alongside such great warriors as they request our prayers and accept our embraces (Galatians 6:2).
Let us uplift each other in prayer and carry each other’s burdens. Let us entrust others with the burdens we carry. We do not have to go at it alone. Consider it a sacred trust and privilege to pray for a fellow believer’s need. Christ is with us personally and through our fellow Christians.
Rewards of obedience
Our daughter recently returned from a four-day youth trip to a beach. She and friends from church drove her tiny car across a couple of states and back, covered in our prayers. A part of me is proud and nervously reluctant to release her to our good Lord, acknowledging she is a young adult. I am vibrating with joy as I celebrate our decision over twenty years ago to not undergo the amniocentesis that would have endangered our daughter’s life. We learned a lesson that we will hold to the rest of our lives, that it is better to accept the cup God extends to us so we can depend on Him more..
