And with that humility comes a need for a Savior.
Yesterday, we took our daughter Ahlana to the dentist to
have several of her teeth removed. It was the first time our daughter would have
a dental extraction, let alone have several at the same time. Aside from the
extractions, she would also have several teeth fillings.
The procedure, along with our daughter’s age, required that
she be put under sedation.
Needless to say, that as a concerned parent, I had more than
a passing worry about the whole thing.
What if things go
wrong? What if something happens to my daughter? What if we end up losing her
during the process?
Those of you who are parents could perhaps understand and
excuse my pessimism. We have only one daughter after all.
I cannot tell you how much I hate not being in control. I
was raised by my family to be a man in charge and independent. I was made to
realize that in this world, you cannot really trust anyone to do anything
right, and that the most qualified person to do anything for myself was myself.
There was no one else to help myself other than myself, and I had no one else
to blame if something goes wrong, other than myself.
My family had their reasons for raising me this way.
Conditions within Philippine society are such that it pays to be self-reliant.
But this upbringing did come with a price. And that price
was that I found it hard to ever completely trust anyone. That and the fact
that I hated not being in control of anything.
So when my wife and I were talking to the chief pediatric
dentist and her anesthesiologist prior to the procedure, the foremost thought
running through my mind was: “Can I
really trust these people to do what is best for my daughter?”
The answer of course was that I can’t. Their waiver, which I
had to sign prior to the procedure, said as much. There were too many unseen
variables. Too many possibilities that things could go wrong.
It was a grim and sobering reminder that no matter how much
we fool ourselves into thinking otherwise, the cold and hard fact is that we are not really fully in control of
anything in our lives.
In a world where anything could go wrong, doubt is the
quintessential posture that one adapts to.
And doubt was what gnawed at my soul the moment my wife and
I gave the go ahead for the procedure. And like a ghastly bride accompanying
her undead bridegroom, that doubt came with the cold touch of fear: the fear
that something indeed might go wrong.
My daughter is old enough to realize that this was going to
be an uncomfortable experience for her. She clung to her mother instinctively
the moment the nurses came for her. The anesthesiologist tried to speak
soothing words to her even as he hid the needle and syringe containing the
sedative behind his back.
I tried my best to brace myself for what was to come. But as
any parent would know, you can never truly prepare yourself to see your child
in pain.
Hearing my daughter scream and cry as the needle plunged
into her little arm was hard enough. But seeing her slowly go limp as the
sedative did its work was beyond anything I’ve experienced before. I personally
had to carry her to the dentist’s chair where the nurses strapped her in. I
tried to speak words of comfort to her as I carried her. But instead of hugging
me as she usually would, she just lay there limp in my arms, her dazed eyes
looking up at me with her mouth half open. I had never seen her in this state
before.
It was an incredible struggle fighting off the urge to just
run out of there with my daughter. I fought desperately to keep my tears in
check as the nurses calmly told me to leave the room.
It was at this moment that I realized why I needed God in my
life.
When your loved one’s
fate lay outside of your own hands, to whom do you put your trust in a world
where nothing is ever certain?
My wife and I had been so agitated by the experience of
seeing our daughter be put under sedation for the first time that we both had
to go back to our car. There, we let ourselves go and cried to God to protect
our daughter during the procedure. It was a trial of faith like none other we
have experienced so far.
I would be a hypocrite if I said I believed in God and yet
did not acknowledge His Sovereign Will over everything. He wouldn’t be God otherwise. And it was this Sovereign Will that I
appealed to with prayer: that He would allow no harm to come to my daughter,
and that the very same God who blessed us with her, would not choose to take
her away at this moment.
Through the turbulence and swirling storm of my soul, His
voice spoke in answer to my pleas:
Would you still love
Me if I took away your daughter?
My thoughts were then filled with the image of the crucified
Christ, hanging bloodied and dying, offering everything He had for love of His
Father and of mankind.
God gave His one and
only son for us. Could I do the same?
I realized that I could not.
In that moment, even as my heart was breaking with worry
over my daughter, I acknowledged God for who He really is.
He alone is God.
There is none like Him. There is no other Force who keeps the universe from
falling into random chaos; no other Being who purposefully creates and destroys,
and puts everything back together again.
If I couldn’t trust
Him, then who can I trust?
“Let Your Will be done
Lord. I will trust in You no matter what.” I prayed as my heart bowed down
in worship.
And even as I continued to cry, my soul settled within me.
It had found its solid ground.
My daughter is back
to her old bubbly self again, sans four teeth of course, and with a few tooth
fillings added in as a result of the experience.
As for myself, I too walked away from this dental encounter
with a filling of my own: A God-sized one filling that hole within my soul that
only He could fill.
To Him be all the Glory.
PS. Our thanks go out
to all our relatives and friends who prayed with us over our daughter. May His Glory
fill your lives as well!
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