Severe Mercies

This is Adam writing on Ellen's blog as I watch over her sleep in a labor and delivery room. We have been at the hospital since Saturday night after her contractions came back. She has been flirting with labor ever since a recent GI bug we contracted. Graham will be 35 weeks tomorrow...a respectably safe age to deliver but not without potential difficulties. Needless to say our prayer is that her contractions would remit.
It is so hard not to be gripped with fear in situations like these...to trust that even in the midst of hardship or suffering our kind Father in Heaven is at work, to know that He even bends suffering in such a way that it ultimately reveals His goodness and mercy. Indeed, it has been in the times that are uncertain and painful that the message of the Gospel has been the most clear to me. In my tearful prayers these 2 days has come a "severe mercy" as C.S. Lewis put it. I think I reflected on this in an earlier blogpost (see Ellen's stroke post). It is severe to know that our son may enter the world with great hardship and danger to his life, but it is merciful that God uses this to make us love Him more. If you have ever suffered over one you love and you faithfully walk with Christ then you know the surprising peace I am talking about. You are familiar with grief turning into laughter through your tears. You know what it is to feel the certainty of God's love more poignantly, to your very core, even as you shudder with pain. You know what it is to have your hands raise spontaneously as you envision holding up your child or your spouse to God, crying out that you trust Him with their precious little life. Like Abraham we walk with our children to their place of trial awaiting God's provision, knowing that He can raise them to life. Our Father, the one who spared not His own Son for our sake, help us to give to you "our's" in return. May our children be "known by You" our God and take the good news of Christ into the world.