Today felt different.
Today I was reminded how little I understand God's plan and His reasoning. I know that I can't know all the details of God's working or how He'll choose to glorify Himself but I have felt reasonably confident that He is good. And even now, I know in my head that He is good but it doesn't feel that way. What I saw today doesn't "fit" with what I know of God. I feel as if I'm committing blasphemy by admitting this but, in my finite flesh, I don't understand. I want to tilt my head back and scream it - I DON'T UNDERSTAND, GOD!!
Today I held a woman in my arms and wiped the tears from her face while she delivered her 15 week-old baby. The victim of a rape at gun point, she showed me the mark, still purple, from where the man pushed the butt of his gun into her face, just to the right of her nose. She told me how he threatened to kill her. She became pregnant and in her shame and anger, aborted her baby. The result of such an invasive, unsterile "procedure" caused not only the death of her baby but uterine sepsis.
I looked at her and felt an overwhelming need to hold and comfort her. She was in obvious physical pain but her emotional turmoil was impossible to ignore.
She asked if she could go sit on the toilet to deliver but I told her that she needed to stay in the bed because she was on a drip of oxytocin. I imagine she just wanted to get it all over with in a fashion that seemed "normal" like going to the bathroom.
I stayed with her for a long time and we talked. She told me that no man would want her now. In my naivety, I said, "Surely a good man will know that this (speaking of the rape) is not what you wanted and that it wasn't your fault." She looked into my face and said, "This is {insert country name}." I was taken aback by her direct response and I was acutely aware of how much I still have to learn about these people and their culture. For a moment, I felt like the outsider again.
After the delivery, upon closer inspection, I could see a large hole in the baby's skull but he was otherwise, completely perfect with all his little fingers and toes. His umbilical cord was as thin as dental floss. The doctor came and had to help deliver the placenta which was difficult as her cervix hadn't completely opened. It was a painful and humiliating procedure undertaken by a male doctor.
When all was delivered and taken away to the trash, she rolled over onto her side and slept for a long time. When she awoke, she ate and washed and was then asked to leave. I don't know if she went to another ward or if she went home but I didn't see her again.
Even now, as I think about the day and my time with her, I am bewildered. If God wanted to glorify Himself and make His Name known, couldn't he have done that by stopping this evil in its tracks? Or couldn't He have brought someone along to show this woman His love and forgiveness and persuaded her to carry the baby to term? My list of His "options" goes on and on.
Scripture says that God seeks to and will glorify Himself regardless of man's actions. But don't misunderstand this. God isn't a big-headed dictator seeking a pride-filled glory as we may imagine a human might run after. Rather, He is a gracious, loving, perfect Heavenly Father who's worth we cannot even fully understand in our flesh. How then could we completely understand the purity of His quest for glory? Or how could we accurately know the depths of His goodness when we still inhabit these bodies and reside on this planet? Our idea - my idea - of true goodness and love is flawed - flawed to the very core of my being and will remain so until I'm in eternity with Him.
But with all that I don't know, I know that I can rest in this: In His grace, He has allowed me to know Him. He has shown me that I don't have to understand His reasons for doing (or not doing) something because all I have to do is know Him - know His character and trust the perfect God who holds the entire world in His hand. The ability to have a relationship with the Creator of the universe is a gift and a steadfast rock to lean on.
I will never know His reasoning for why this girl had to live through this horror and her baby end up in the trash, thrown out and unwanted. Tonight my heart wrestles with it. I weep for this woman and her heart. And I'm mad. Not necessarily at God but at evil and my own flesh that causes my inability to understand the full sovereignty of God. I want so badly to just know why. But in answer to my cries, Jehovah says, "Know me. That's all you have to do."
1 John 5:19 & 20 - "We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true - even in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life."
No comments:
Post a Comment