reflections: unnoticed mercy

There's some things that have been swirling around in my head for a while lately, but I just haven't taken the time to write them out.

If you'll remember back to those days in hong kong, you will remember that funny though those blogs may be, there was a hint of anger and irritation to them. The honest truth is that I was not necessairily angry at God, just irritated in general. The biggest part of the anger came from my mind trying to piece together "whys" and "hows" that the human race always tries to find when tragedy strikes. At that point, all the facts indicated that the kidney stone and its complications led to the miscarraige of the baby. That tasted like gravel in my mouth. It made me angry. Of all the times I could have had a kidney stone, why then? Why even at all?

Now that the emotions have receeded and life is back to its very normal routine, it's really easy to forget that all that drama even happened. But after coming home and doing a little more research, the more probable scenario now seems that the baby was already dead before the kidney stone ever reared its head. This is not necessariliy based on solid, undebateable facts, but generalizations for what ought to be normal for when heartbeats show up on ulrasounds and gestational age and things like that. If it were true that the baby had already died, then the appearance of the kidney stone was - contrary to what I have been calling it all this time - an incredible act of a merciful God.

If the baby had already died and I had no kidney stone, there would have been no reason for me to fly to hong kong. All the emotion and pain and uncertainty would have come like a thief in the night, so to speak, and it all would have happened here in my asialand home. I would have been going to the hospital down the street, simply out of necessity. I would have all the memories of that event locked in my mind, and it all would have been in my house, in my city. No kind nurses who stayed by my side, no chance to look at the baby after it came out, no doctors that spoke to me in english, none of that special time after it was all over to savor those free days with my family and regroup. No time with friends, no late night card games, no outback, no cheetos. That perspective changes everything for me.

Even though I wasn't mad at God, I felt distant toward him. Maybe sort of like passive-aggressive. Maybe. But just looking at things this way - what could very possibly be the most accurate way anyway - gives Him glory for His mercy at a time when I thought He was anything but merciful. So, for all of you who hurt with me during that time, I wanted to share my newest revelation. I was wrong. He has been much more merciful to me that I thought or deserved.