Created to be

For you created my inmost being;
       you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
       your works are wonderful,
       I know that full well.
    --Psalm 139:13-14


This isn't taking God by surprise. I have heard—and spoken—some form of this phrase a zillion times since Roo was diagnosed. In fact, even before then. When Roo spent a week in the hospital as a newborn, I said it to God, although I followed it up with "But that's not really helping me right now!"

God knows. I get that. Sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't, but He knows. He knows what's coming and He knows how we'll feel about it and deal with it.

But God doesn't just know. He controls.

I was having a little discussion with God this morning—most of which will be in another post, hopefully tomorrow. And somewhere in the middle of it all, it hit me. God created Roo.

I knew this, of course. On the surface, it shouldn't be a surprise. But there's a deeper truth in there that I had been missing all this time. You see, here's how my talk with God went. (OK, disclaimer here. I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but let me say it again: I do not hear God speaking audibly. When I talk about feeling crazy, it's NOT that kind of crazy. ;-) I just mean that I was praying silently, and God uses Scriptures and truth to reveal Himself and sometimes His answers to my prayers. I may have worded that awkwardly, but it's the best that I can do on the amount of sleep I'm getting. Are we all on the same page? Same chapter, at least? OK, let's move on.) My talk with God…

Me: "I put a shirt on him this morning that says, 'I want to be a fireman when I grow up' and I almost cried, Lord. OK, I know, what 5-month-old actually wants to be a fireman when he grows up? It's silly. But still, he won't. He's not going to be able to be a fireman or a doctor or a lawyer or… so many other things."

God: "Then those weren't the things he was created to be."

Oh.

And then my heart skipped a beat.

Roo was created with Down syndrome. God didn't just know about Roo's "condition" before we did. God created him that way. The life Roo will live is not some consolation prize because he ended up with Down syndrome—it is the life God intended for him, the life God purposed for him. Maybe Roo wasn't created to be a fireman or a doctor or… whatever. But he was created to be something. He was created in God's image. He was created to bring glory to God. He was created to fill a unique purpose.

God's not just OK with this. This is His plan.

I have been told many times in the past three months that God has a plan for Roo and for our family. I knew that, but somehow in my mind it was always a "Plan B"—the way things were going to be now that Roo has Down's. But no. This is Plan A. For Roo, for Lamb, for Monkey, for my husband, and for me. Roo and his diagnosis and the way that he has and will always touch our lives—they're all part of God's plan.

God knit Roo together in my womb, and He crafted each and every cell with one extra chromosome.

And for the first time, I can look at the Down syndrome and at the months behind us and the years to come and say… Praise the Lord.