Like I mentioned last week, I have been doing a Bible study plan on YouVersion called Hope Heals in the Midst of Suffering. I finished it yesterday and it was awesome. It was written by Katherine, a woman who survived a severe stroke shortly after becoming a mother, as well as her husband.
The plan follows Joseph’s story, the part of Genesis I had gotten stuck on in my Bible in a Year plan. I was glad to read it now.
At one point, Katherine shares that, about a year after her stroke, she is still unable to perform many basic functions. She is still in adult diapers, unable to eat, unable to even lift up her head. Her family is having Thanksgiving dinner with her son, then a toddler. As the family are playing with her son, she wonders if there was a mistake. Should she have died from her stroke?
It was at this point that a lightbulb went off in my head. I, too, have often wondered whether my life is a mistake. A calculation mistake, to be exact.
You see, I was born over three months premature. Officially, I was born at 26 weeks 4 days gestation. However, it is quite probable given the circumstances of my conception that my mother really wasn’t yet 26 weeks along. At the time, 26 weeks gestation was the cutoff for active, life-saving treatment in the NICU.
My parents weren’t even sure I should be treated actively. At one point, when I’d suffered a brain bleed, my father asked the neonatologist what he was doing with regards to my treatment. “We’re just keeping her alive,” he said. He (or his nurse) added that my father shouldn’t interfere in my treatment or he’d lose custody of me.
In 2004, when I was eighteen, this same doctor was quoted in a newspaper as saying that he sometimes meets preemies he’s kept alive back in his early days as a doctor, about whom he wonders: “What have we done?!” I at the time tried to reassure myself that he wouldn’t have meant me. Or would he? I, after all, am multiply-disabled and in long-term care.
The devotional in the Bible plan I was reading continued. Katherine at this point heard God clearly speak: “I am God. I do not make mistakes.”
This was what I needed to hear! I have tried to find my neonatologist on Google several times since that newspaper article. However, I don’t need his opinion. I have talked to my father about his views on my quality of life several times, but it hasn’t helped. I don’t need my father’s opinion either. God chose for me to be kept alive and that’s what matters.
Also joining Friendship Friday this week.
A Multitude of Musings 
Your wonderful story reminds me of the children’s song my children used to sing:
“You are a promise… your are a possibility!”
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Oh, what a sweet song! Thank you for sharing this.
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Oh my goodness you are certainly not a mistake! Being disabled does not make you any less worthy of being alive. I was a mistake in that my parents didn’t plan to get pregnant. But I’m glad to be alive. Big hugs to you x
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Thank you for sharing and I’m so glad you’re here too.
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🥰
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Perhaps the neonatologist questioned whether he had been trying to play God by intervening in the ways he did.
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Well, not really. This was in the context of the cutoff for active treatment being moved from 25 to 24 weeks in some circumstances at one hospital and not others. The reason the cutoff was at 25 weeks nationwide until then was for quality-of-life purposes. The doctor probably meant people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. It may seem easy to distance myself from that population, but honestly, I don’t want to.
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Ok that makes sense.
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Not everyone’s purpose is as clear as yours. Your story, your messaging, and your courage, are in every one of your posts! God speaks loudly through you. ❤
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Oh, thanks so much for saying that. I want to assure you though that, even if your purpose isn’t clear to you, it is to God. I for one don’t usually see my purpose as shining through in my posts either.
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It’s ‘loud and clear’ to me in your intelligent, heartfelt, posts. Thanks for what you do. ❤
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Oh, thank you so much for pointing this out to me! 🙂
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Thanks for your testimony. I have never undergone such difficult circumstances and, honestly, I’m afraid. But your story and of Katherine encourages me. By the way, Susanne Spurgeon was saying same words during her illness: “God never makes mistakes.”
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Thanks for sharing this. You are lucky not to have gone through such hardships as of yet, but I trust that even if you do, your faith will get you through.
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That sounds like a really interesting BIble study plan. I’m so glad that Katherine heard God telling her that he does not make mistakes and that this also spoke to your heart. It’s a good reminder to hold on to. #MMBC
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Yes, it’s a great reminder. I am truly grateful to have stumbled upon this plan.
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Amen! It is easy to question God & more difficult to accept that God is in control.
I’m so glad that you can share your mind & heart with me, way across the ocean in Texas!
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And I am so glad you are reading my posts and supporting me. I agree it is hard to accept God is in control.
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We enjoyed your post and yes, God always has a plan for us.
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True. I’m glad you enjoyed my post.
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Very interesting as I read your post because one of my friends has a granddaughter born 3 months premature in 2020, and who also had a brain bleed. It’s yet to be determined if she’ll have disabilities but she is naturally behind on the developmental steps because of her prematurity. But regardless of what happens in the years ahead, I agree with you that neither you nor her were a mistake because you are here! God fought for you both to stay alive for good purposes! Thanks for sharing this. I’m glad you link up at Grace and Truth.
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Thank you for sharing. I’m so glad my story inspired you and I wish your friend and her granddaughter all the very best.
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Thank you for sharing your story. Yours has been one of long trust. I think our enemy whispers dark questions into our hearts over lesser trauma, so your story is very powerful. I always am inspired by Joni Erickson Tada when she speak on the value of life too.
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Thank you for sharing and I’m glad I inspired you. I think I started reading one of Joni’s books many years ago, but back then I hadn’t become a Christian yet and didn’t like the heavily religious content.
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Powerful! “I am God. I do not make mistakes.”
And equally powerful, “God chose for me to be kept alive and that’s what matters.”
I think people get caught up in the “doing.” What do you do? When God calls us to be a sweet fragrant incense, a vessel of faith (which is pleasing to Him), a surrendered heart willing to receive His Love poured out on us, and for us to delight in Him.
When we learn to “be” before Him – giving and receiving – then everything else comes into perspective. Everything that we “do” will pass away, it’s the attitude in which we do things, our heart posture, if we do and speak in love, if we do and speak as unto Him – that’s what He looks at in our lives.
When we find that place of contentment, joy and delight in Him and in His Presence, we find freedom. And all the world’s clamoring of what you “do” is seen for the irrelevance that it is.
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Thank you so much for your thought-provoking response. I agree 100%!
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I agree. I was born at 27 weeks, so I was a premie also! We are here for a reason! God has plans for us!
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Thank you for saying that. I agree completely.
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