House on the Rock

It was a Monday. We had finally gotten that coveted double line on a pregnancy test, announcing the advent of our growing family. We scurried back to St. Vincent and were overwhelmed to see that hopeful heartbeat indicating life inside me once again. Joe and I spent the next several days discussing (debating?) the name of our future child: he wanted all our babies to start with L; I feared that we may have all boys, and what if we were left with nothing but Lincoln and Logan? Not bad names on their own, but a Lincoln House feels a little too close to what you make with those beloved old notched-wood building sets. And Logan House? Middle name Road?

I just don’t think so.

Regardless, we were in the thick of passionate Pro-Con writing when my phone rang. It was Stephanie, our midwife, the same fast-acting hero who safely delivered our son and stopped a massive hemorrhage from drastically changing all of life as we knew it. “Hey,” she spoke softly. “We have your bloodwork here. Do you guys have a minute to talk?”

I sighed. Her tone was a looming storm cloud. Every part of my pregnant body grew tense, resisting the urge to say, “Not if you have bad news!”

It’s true, I’ve become a bit aversive to bad news. I think we all are, but that whirlwind season of my mom’s terminal cancer diagnosis topped with seizures, strokes, hospice, death, and our subsequent miscarriage has me uniquely inclined to cover my ears and shout, “La la la la la!” every time there’s a hint of harm on the horizon.

But I’m not a little kid anymore, so instead of burying my face in a pillow, I said sure. She went on to tell us that the emergency blood transfusion given after my hemorrhage caused my blood to build up some antibodies — Anti-C in particular — which could, in essence, attack our baby’s blood and cause a smorgasbord of complications.

Stephanie was incredibly kind. Calm. Gentle. Gracious. Full of compassion and marked with a care that wasn’t going to let us off the phone until every one of our questions was answered. But when push came to shove, she could answer the medical questions. She could cover logistics. She couldn’t answer my desperate future-focused cries like, “Will we have problems?” “Do you think my numbers will rise?” “Will our baby have complications?” “Are we going to be okay?”

The rest of that afternoon felt heavy. Deciding on a name seemed futile — all we could do was drop in prayer for God to protect our precious child. Logan or Lincoln mattered little — we wanted this baby to live. Eventually I worked up the guts to call my dad, perhaps even more bad-news-avoidant than I am — and was, once again, blessed by his steady demeanor and godly wisdom:

“At some point, we’re just going to have to decide whether we believe God is sovereign or not.”

A simple dictionary definition of sovereign will point to supreme or ultimate power. Synonyms include absolute, unrestricted, unrestrained. It was in the days that followed this phone call that we had to decide whether we truly believed that our God is in complete control. Whether he has unrestricted, unrestrained power to guide our lives exactly according to his plan and purpose. And whether we believe we can trust him.

If God is truly sovereign, nothing happens outside of his merciful hand and perfect plan. If he is truly sovereign, nothing will harm us that will not be for our good and his glory. If he is truly sovereign, we can see everything that comes our way as providentially predestined by our perfect Father to conform us to the image of his son. And we can celebrate that this sovereign grace sustains us every step!

So we don’t know whether we will face complications or come through this unscathed. We don’t know whether my antibodies will attack our baby’s blood or whether it will be a simple shrug of the shoulders. We don’t know if my numbers will grow and I’ll be moved to High Risk and every batch of bloodwork will bring about a revision to the plan — whether the nurses will give me sympathetic glances for the next 20 weeks and every phone call will begin with, “Hey, can we talk?”

We don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future. We have, with His help, become completely convinced that it is a God with absolute, ultimate authority who can only do what is good.