Happy Birthday, Aaron!

Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. (Ecclesiastes 11:1-5 ESV). Today is another milestone for Aaron. He is 30 years old! First, let me say happy birthday to him! Then, let me share a lesson taught to me through his birth. Aaron’s birth was always a mystery to me. There were many difficulties overcome that allowed him to be born safe and healthy. Like all of our boys, he was “late” in deciding to make his entrance. After nearly three weeks post term, the doctors decided that he might need a little encouragement to make his entrance. We checked Mary into the hospital to begin the procedure to induce labor. Twelve hours of labor later we were no closer to having a baby! He just wasn’t budging. The doctor was very surprised and merely commented that the best course of action was to go home, rest, and wait until he was ready. That was a Monday. On Wednesday, events began to unfold that would require him to be born, perhaps with surgery. The same scenario ensued throughout the day. Mary endured strong labor, but no movement of the baby into birth position. No one could understand that series of events. Late that night, Mary was taken into surgery and Aaron was delivered. Understandably I was curious and concerned. I asked God on more than one occasion “why?” Perhaps there have been things in your life that you just couldn’t figure out. Perhaps you have witnessed friends and loved ones go through trials that seemed at the time beyond God’s repair, even though they really weren’t, and you wondered how God could possibly “work all things for good”. This was one of those times! Then the doctor came out of surgery with the explanation. Aaron had the umbilical cord loosely wrapped around his neck in a knot. It was not restricting his vital functions, so it never showed on any of the monitoring. However, had he moved into the birth position, he would have strangled before birth! I was in awe at the care of God in this miracle of life! That’s the way it is with certain situations in life as well. How do we explain them? We can’t. How can we understand them? We can’t. What we can know is that there is a God who understands; a God who cares, and a God we can trust. Our mission as Christians is not to understand all God’s ways, because we will not be able to. Our mission is to trust the God whose ways are so much higher than ours.