30DaysOfBibleLettering - Round 4 Chikamu

But that the works of God might be displayed in him.
John 9:3 ESV

Four years ago, I took my 5 month old daughter to the doctor. And then to another one and then another.  It sometimes took multiple trips to different doctors in a single day! "She was teething," they said. "She's got reflux," they said. "I'm not too concerned..." they said.  But, I knew in my mother's heart something was wrong.   When my husband got home from work, we took our baby to the emergency room. An hour after we got there, Lauren's heart went into cardiac arrest. Over the next weeks and months she had multiple emergency surgeries, episodes of cardiac arrest, and days on life support machines and ventilators.  It was by far the darkest time in my life, but it was also the time when I was closest to God.  

Lauren was diagnosed with an exceedingly rare heart defect that doesn't actually have any signs or symptoms. She looked healthy to the doctors but God knew that something was wrong. He was the one pushing me to take her because He knew that her heart wasn't perfect. And, as hard as it is to say, He made her that way. It's so strange to me to say that God made something imperfect, but only He knew the larger plan that he had for her.  Our minds, just like the disciples in John 9, see the here and now and look to blame someone or something for things that don't go according to how we think they should go.

We don't understand that those "imperfections" could be part of God's plan. But that's because we aren't God. God sees the bigger picture. As hard as it was for me to accept, God knew Lauren's story and that her suffering would to bring many to Him and glory to His name.  The darkness that we see and the blame that we love to assign to things of this world are not what we should focus on. The blind man that Jesus healed was not blind because of a sinful act.  He was blind so God could make him see. And that man brings glory to God's name, both then and still today.   God has a plan for both the imperfect and the perfect.  Praise the Lord that everything works together for His glory!

by @amandaarneill