One in a Thousand

The other night Tom and I were driving home from small group, and a song came on the radio called "Heaven Is the Face" by Steven Curtis Chapman. I had never heard it before, but I discovered that it was written by Chapman after the sudden, unexpected death of his little girl last year. The words brought me to tears. I could identify with his feelings of confusion, grief and hope.

The following day, I turned on the radio and this same song was playing again. I thought to myself, "Hmmm, I am starting to see a pattern here ... maybe I should buy this song." When I went online to buy the song, I noticed that Chapman had written an entire album about the depth of his grief over the loss of his precious daughter and God's faithfulness in it. As God would have it, this album was released just last week. Coincidence? I think not.

You see, I discovered this album just a few hours after seeing another ultrasound of Baby David. During the ultrasound, the physician said, "You know, medicine is never 100% certain, but I am as close to 100% as one can be about the certainty of this diagnosis." He said that David has a form of lethal skeletal dysplasia that causes his bones to be very brittle. He showed me several places where it appeared that David's bones were badly fractured. My heart broke all over again. This news had gone from bad to worse.

Before seeing the pictures of his little broken bones, I had thought that the pain of this suffering was only affecting me and Tom. Now, we were faced with the possibility that this precious child may be experiencing pain because of his broken bones. I was overwhelmed with sorrow. As the tears streamed down my face, I asked the physician if the baby was in pain. He said, "No one really knows how babies in utero experience pain." Another stab to my heart. Instead of answers, I was left with more questions.

Why God is allowing this to happen, I do not know, but I am confident of this - God is good. His kindness is beyond measure. He knows the number of hairs on David's tiny head. If He sees when a sparrow falls to the ground and He clothes the lilies of the field in beautiful splendor, He most certainly knows every fracture in Baby David's body. The Father's love for my precious baby boy is far greater than I could ever imagine. So, I am praying and trusting that my gracious God is taking care of this precious child. I feel so helpless, but I rejoice all the more gladly in my helplessness because I know that when I am weak, my God is strong.

In listening to Chapman's album, I hear his brokenness, and I imagine that he must have asked many of the same questions that I am now asking. I am sure that he and his wife Mary Beth have wondered many times why God allowed their little girl to be taken from them. John Piper says that God is always doing thousands of things that we cannot see. He never has only one purpose in what He does. He always has thousands of purposes, in everything He does. He is infinitely wise, and everything He does relates to everything else that He does sooner or later. For those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, all of them work together for good.

My mind is small, and I cannot see or understand the thousands of things that God is doing. I find comfort in the knowledge that God could use the unexplainable tragedy of the death of Maria Sue Chapman to minister to me in my time of need ... and I am just one in a thousand purposes that God is working together for good.