Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

My husband is a doctor. A family-medicine-turned-emergency-room-doctor, specifically. I love this fact. I love that he knows so much about all the injuries I face as a mother of four young children.

In the eleven years we have parented together, our kids have had stitches from making unplanned contact with tile floor, asphalt, a coffee table, a dining room table, the handlebars of a scooter, a brick wall, and a Thomas the Train windmill (possibly thrown at one child by another, but I won’t get into that right now.) We have also had two broken wrists from separate decisions to ride a bike down a steep driveway and a grassy hill, respectively.

Seriously, how do all you moms do it without a doctor in the house? Despite having my husband there, we’ve still had to make multiple trips to the ER for things that have happened while he was away. Kids have so many little things go wrong. Rashes. Cuts. Bruises. Coughs. Sore throats. Allergies.

It’s crazy.

But last week, it was a much simpler problem. My ten-year-old son Elijah (who goes by the nickname “Sidge”) had something small pop off his braces. Being as I really wanted to avoid a one-hour round trip to the orthodontist for a thirty-second repair, I asked my husband to try to fix it.

He had Sidge stand up against a wall in our bathroom, I shined a flashlight in Sidge’s mouth, and John got to work on repairing the broken brace using some little medical tools he had on hand.

Just a few minutes in, I found myself nearly in tears. Sidge had passed out. Too long with his knees locked and his neck cocked back had resulted in him doing a faceplant onto the bathroom floor.

Again, I was glad to have my husband with me as Sidge started making seizure-like movements. John informed me this was completely normal when someone has passed out and is coming back around.

As my husband finished fixing Sidge’s braces with our son now lying on his back so he wouldn’t accidentally lock his knees, John turned to me and said, “Isn’t God cool?”

I must have looked confused, because he went on without me replying.

“God designed our bodies to protect our brains at all cost. The body puts itself flat on its back because it knows the blood supply has been compromised. God designed that! He designed your body to know what it needs to do all by itself.”

Psalm 139:14 tells us to praise God because we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” But I think sometimes we forget how amazing our bodies—and the world God created, for that matter— really are. All things that just happen are no accident. The sun. The moon. The change of seasons. Photosynthesis. Metabolism. Chemical reactions. Our ability to breathe. Rain. The life cycle. It’s all so incredible, and most of the time, we take it all for granted.

Think about human life. I don’t think I realized what a miracle a child is until I couldn’t have one. And then God did what doctors couldn’t do for me and put a child into my barren womb.

Take some time today to put aside the hustle and bustle and just be. Look up. Look up at the stars. Look at the moon. Take some time to look at your child’s little fingers and toes, and watch how perfectly they bend and move. (Did you know there are surgeons who dedicate their whole lives to simply studying and operating on the human hand? Just one body part is that intricate. God made that!) Breathe in. Breathe out. Feel your pulse. Smile.

Our amazing heavenly Father did all of that. All! First Corinthians 2:7 tells us that “No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.”

Our God is an awesome God. Today, let’s remember that.

Wendi Kitsteiner is a former city girl now living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, Tennessee with her husband and four young children. She is passionate about the causes of infertility, adoption, and keeping it real as a mom. You can follow her at flakymn.blogspot.com or becauseofisaac.org.

Photograph © Sergio Souza, used with permission