quick, count your blessings before they disappear

During the first years of our marriage I was certain Alex was not long for the world. I remember feeling anxious and worried about him for no reason at all. If he came in from work fifteen minutes late, I’d have spent the last two of them imagining police cars pulling up and a knock at the door . . . “Ma’am, we have some bad news for you.” Alex is healthier than a horse and tougher than a rhino. The biggest risk he took on his job at the church was probably operating the microwave. It didn’t matter. I remember it was a big challenge for me when he went to Myanmar for three weeks on a short-term mission trip. It was at least a possibility that he would not come home . . .

Over time this worry faded. Then, about six months after our fourth anniversary, Norah was born. For months and months I would wake up suddenly in the night, gasping and feeling the blankets frantically, certain I’d fallen asleep with her in my arms and where was she now?! I never fell asleep holding Norah. But very often I was sure that I had, and somehow squashed her or dropped her. When she was four weeks old I transferred Norah to her own crib in her own little room. I would still wake sometimes in a panic that she was gone. But also, every night before falling asleep, I had to go in her room “to check on her.” What was I checking for? I needed to know that she was still breathing. I needed to feel her little chest going up and down before I could shut my eyes. She was an extremely healthy baby. It didn’t matter. I had to know.

Then we moved to England and illnesses began to hit us, one after another. Any day, I felt, one would be Serious. Then Harriet was born and more waking in the night, feeling the blankets frantically.

Why was I afraid? When we were married I experienced such a deep satisfaction, such a thorough happiness. It was too good to be true. Then we had the girls. They are so indescribably precious, such amazing gifts from God. I know, deep-down, that I don’t deserve these good things. I know there are so many that don’t have these same gifts–maybe no spouse as of yet, or maybe God has not given children. Why do I have them? It can’t last. Surely they will be snatched away.

One can see that I haven’t really surrendered to our good and sovereign God. Knowing that, in his inscrutable wisdom, he does allow bad things to happen is enough for me to fear they will happen to me. And they could. Faith is not believing that hard things won’t come. It is instead believing that God is good all the time, that his ways are higher than mine, and that nothing can happen to me that he will not work together for my good.