Mom's Thoughts

Emma Grace is away at camp. Strangers and friends have asked me how we’re doing, what we think about all of this. Here are my thoughts...


I’m hoping Jesus comes back within the next few weeks. I mean, I really want to grow old with my husband and watch my children get married and all that, but I don’t want to face this ugly but necessary thing coming up in a couple of weeks.

I’m not worried about the actual surgery. Emma Grace’s heart surgeon assures us valve replacements are heart surgery 101. The hospital stay doesn’t concern me much. Texas Children’s consistently ranks in the top ten as far as hospitals for children go. Their heart center ranks even higher. They must be doing something right.

Missing school? Eh, a pain but manageable. The logistics of it all? That’s where friends and family step in. Overall, figuring out what it’s going to look like won’t be easy, but I’m okay with all of that. What I’m struggling with is larger.

How do I know Emma Grace is going to be okay?

When it’s all said and done, I don’t. That’s what is so scary. Brennan Manning, who is controversial I know but I can’t figure out why, says the absolute hardest thing for a Christian to do is to trust. Oh, I can have faith. I can have faith in a loving God until the cows come home, but trust, well that’s another story for me.

A friend once told me in passing between church and Sunday school that her family didn’t have an alarm system because she knew God would take care of them. I was checking my kids into their classes and simultaneously thinking this was the most naive statement I had ever heard. Does she not watch the news? People who believe in God get burgled, or worse, all the time. Bad things happen to those who have faith. Good people get robbed. I looked up to tell her my thoughts, and she was gone. The statement has resonated with me since then.

God will take care of them. Hmmm..... Perhaps my friend knew a deeper truth? If they were burgled, would it be pleasant? No. Would it be horrible? Yes. Would it be something she would carry with her forever in her soul? Perhaps. Could she be forgiving? I don’t know.

She knew that God, the god she chose to worship, follow and obey, has promised her nothing but good at the end.

The end. Of her life. No more. Only good. She knew that He will ultimately take care of her.

What a soul-wrenching, change-my-life truth. Life is yucky here. Good people get robbed. Heart problems exist.

The list goes on. The messiness surrounds us, but our God, my heavenly father, has promised to take care of us.

So when Emma Grace is wheeled away from me, I’ll be pulling on all my moxie and courage to trust God, the great physician, the great I AM to take care of her. And I know He will. In the end.

And that is what is going to get me through surgery.