His Plans Are Better...Even If We Don't Understand.

(Note: For this post I'm going to change some names and details in order to protect some of the individuals that were involved and might not want me spreading their business over the internet for the entire world to read.)

Let me begin by apologizing for the delay in this post.  We had family in town to celebrate the baptism of our brother-in-law and family absolutely comes first with us...that, and I would be lying if I didn't admit that Tech football consumes at least 5 hours of my Saturdays every fall.  I'm also a little tardy because I have spent an extra amount of time on this post, writing and re-writing, trying to make sure that it was just right because it means so much to Lauren and I.  But enough teasing, on to the story...

One of the first events that really began to rock our world came right after the beginning of the new year. Lauren was eating lunch with a co-worker when a friend of the co-worker walked up and struck up a conversation. For the sake of this post, we'll call the co-worker's friend Susie.

Lauren and her co-worker asked Susie to join them, so after she got her food, Susie pulled up a chair and sat down.  Lauren didn't really know Susie, but had run into her from time to time with her co-worker and had always found her to be a sweet girl. As conversation progressed, Susie shared that she was pregnant and didn't think she could keep the baby. She explained that the pregnancy was a result of a fling and that the father was not the man that she was currently dating. Susie was scared to tell her boyfriend and felt that her best option would be to have an abortion. 

Obviously this came as quite a shock to Lauren.  She had definitely not anticipated having such an intense and meaningful conversation when she sat down for lunch that day. Susie told Lauren and the co-worker that she had already scheduled an appointment for the procedure, but that she had doubts because she grew up Catholic and she knew that her parents would disapprove.  

Lauren's heart immediately broke for Susie.  She began to comfort Susie and explain to her that she had numerous options other than just abortion. Lauren even offered to take the baby right there on the spot before she even told me what was going on; not that this was a problem. When Lauren texted me to tell me what happened, my first response, well before she got to the part of the story where she offered to take the baby, was "Tell her we will take the baby." God gave Lauren a heart for adoption in high school, and though it took me a lot longer to come around to the idea of adoption, we have always been on the same page when it comes to abortion.  We have discussed adopting ourselves and what that would look like, but that is a story for another day. 

As the days began to pass and Susie's appointment grew nearer, God continued to allow for Lauren and Susie's paths to cross.  Each time, Lauren would try to speak hope to Susie and let her know that she was not alone.  We bathed Susie and that precious little baby in prayer.  We asked our Life Bible Study (Sunday School class), our small group, and members of our church in Lubbock to join us in petitioning God to save that life. Those individuals asked their friends and church members to pray for this little baby.  People were literally praying for Susie and her unborn child all across the globe. 

At the time that this was happening, our small group was in the middle of going through the book, "The Circle Maker" by Mark Batterson.  In short, the book is about the power of prayer and how we should "pray circles" around important things in our lives, asking God to move and show us his will. Our entire small group decided that we would pray circles around Susie and this baby and beg God to move, beg him to show himself to Susie and help her find the strength to choose life. We prayed that He would change her heart, that she would keep this baby and raise it, but that if that was not an option, that she would allow it to be adopted by a family that would love and cherish it.

At the same time, Lauren and I were in the middle of our own Daniel Fast. This fast is based on the story in the book of Daniel where Daniel and three of his friends have been taken captive and brought to Babylon to undergo military training and education to become soldiers for the King.  They are offered choice foods as motivation, but Daniel and his friends choose not to defile themselves with unclean food and instead ask for only vegetables and water.  During this time, Daniel and his friends test out better in all categories than any of the other men eating all of the King's choice foods.  The idea for us was to deny ourselves of choice foods and use that time to pray and seek God's will and direction.  We just knew that God had urged us to take part in this fast at this time so that we could pray for Susie incessantly. 

For weeks we continued to pray for Susie.  It seemed like at least once a day I received a call, text, or email from someone either telling us that they had been praying or that they knew someone that had offered to take the baby if Susie decided that she could not raise it. It brought me to tears every time someone reached out to us. I could see God moving in his people and I could feel him moving in me. With the exception of Lauren, not a single person that was praying for Susie, including myself, had ever met her. There was no relationship or connection to her or her situation other than God moving to stir our hearts for Susie and her baby. 

I was certain that God was going to move in Susie's heart and that she was going to choose to keep her baby. My heart was absolutely filled with anticipation.  Every day when Lauren went to work I was hoping and praying that she would get to see Susie, speak wisdom to her, pray for her, and share God's grace and mercy with her.  I just knew that any day I would get the phone call when Lauren would tell me that we were going to be able to celebrate this answer to prayer in one form or another.

The clock was ticking though because the date of Susie's appointment at the abortion clinic was quickly approaching. Lauren was running into Susie more often than ever and continually trying to build her up, but Susie still hadn't made a decision on what she was going to do.  She had finally told her boyfriend that she was pregnant, but unfortunately, his response only reinforced Susie's fears.  He told her that the only way that they would be able to stay together was if she went through with the abortion.  This broke our hearts, but we knew that God could overcome this so we again reached out to our army of prayer warriors and lifted up Susie, her boyfriend, and the baby.  I was worried, but deep down, I knew God was going to save this baby.

The day before the appointment Lauren asked Susie to lunch in a last ditch effort to break through to her. Susie said "yes" but ended up having to cancel because her child was sick at daycare and needed to go home. We were so disheartened that Lauren wouldn't get another chance to talk to Susie, so Lauren wrote Susie a letter. She told her that God loves her and that Lauren would still be her friend regardless of her decision, but only she could make the decision to choose life for her baby. Lauren emailed the letter to Susie but wasn't sure if she read it.

The day of the appointment finally came and we still didn't know what Susie was going to do.  We continued to pray and beg God to move.  I received a text early that morning from the mother of two of the students that attended a Bible Study that we helped lead in Lubbock.  She told me that she had felt God nudging her to get up that morning well before 5AM to pray for Susie and her baby.  It was just one of so many notes I received that just showed me how God was moving in the hearts of his people.  

I was nervous and anxious all morning.  I must have texted Lauren a hundred times to see if she had heard whether or not Susie had decided to go through with the abortion or not.  Mid-morning, Lauren finally got word that Susie had decided to go through with the procedure. To say that we were broken doesn't even come close to describing how we felt.  I was flooded with emotion and doubt immediately began to creep inside my head.  

"Did I do something wrong? Did I not pray hard enough? Did I not pray the right way? Did I not have enough faith? Why Lord!?! I don't understand, that baby did nothing to deserve this, it was faultless."  

This is probably an indictment on my prayer life, but up until this point, I had never prayed so hard for something that did not directly affect me, especially something that I felt was so selfless and worthy of being answered. I didn't understand and Satan took the opportunity to try to attack in every way possible. I knew that God had a plan and that this was just probably one of those things that I would never understand on this side of Heaven, but my heart hurt.  It ached in a way that I had never experienced before and I didn't know how to reconcile it.  

The pain was amplified by the fact that Lauren and I were trying to have our own baby.  We hadn't really told anyone, but we both had the overwhelming desire to become parents; to be able to love, care for, and protect a little baby.  We didn't understand and this absolutely crushed both of us, but it affected Lauren in a way that I think only other women can understand.  Women are designed to be mothers, to nurture and protect babies, and though this hit me like a freight train, it impacted Lauren at a much different, deeper level that I couldn't even begin to understand.  

Anyone that even remotely knows me knows that I am a "doer" in every sense of the term.  I am very much a pick yourself up by the bootstraps, no time for whining, there's a problem so let's find a solution kind of guy, but this situation left me helpless.  There wasn't a single thing that I could "do" to fix it or to make myself or Lauren feel any better. All I knew to do was to change my prayer from "Dear Lord, please save that little baby" to "Dear Lord, please use this to glorify and further your Kingdom."

I wish that I could tell you that now, 9 months later, I understood what God's plan was. That in hindsight, the bigger picture was coming into focus and I now have it all figured out. That all you need to do is to just sit back and let me share with you the moral of the story...but I can't. I don't understand it any more today than I did the day it happened. 

This post has taken me twice as long to write as any other because I have to keep wiping the tears from my eyes. That baby was innocent and deserved a chance to live, but I take refuge in knowing that he or she is now in Heaven, rejoicing with Jesus, and never had to experience the pain and brokenness of this world. That baby was loved and bathed in prayer for its entire life, and to me, it doesn't get much more beautiful than that.  

I don't understand and that's OK. I don't understand, but His plans are better. I don't understand, but I can tell you that God has already used this experience to prepare us for the future...but that's a story for another day.  

In Him,

Chad