As Long As They're Healthy

"Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?"
"Oh, I don't care. I'll be happy as long as they're healthy."

I think these words get a sort of silent kudos. "Well good for them. They're not going to be disappointed because of the gender of their child. Good for them, they're not being sexist." But that's only one side of what it's saying.

I wonder how many people have said these words, heard these words, anticipated saying them once they got pregnant. I also wonder how many have actually thought about what the words are saying on the flip side.

The flip side is, am I not suggesting that I won't be pleased with them if they're unhealthy? That I might possibly love them less because they're going to make my life even more difficult? That it's hard enough getting up x amount of times in the night without having to deal with some other problem? That we hardly have the money to deal with a normal birth without having to worry about a day spent in NICU? Will we bemoan the events that brought a less-than-perfect child into our lives as our responsibility?

I'm not saying it's wrong to wish good health to your baby - we pray for it all the time, and I fully believe it's a good thing. We don't wish ill on people. But you wouldn't say, "As long as it's a boy" if you want a boy. You might pray for a boy, but you wouldn't hang your happiness on it. So why would you say, "As long as they're healthy?"

Is God's arm too short to help us with the physical or mental care of a child? More, did God say of us, "As long as they're healthy?" Has God not chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty? Hasn't He used a myriad of people that were not perfectly healthy or perfectly formed?

I wonder about these things because I know people who are in the process of adopting. And in that process, they get asked, "Will you take a child with special needs? Will you accept blindness, deafness, cerebral palsy, autism, etc. etc.?" Would you? Would I? Or do we only want the healthy ones? Are they no longer blessings if they're not healthy?

If God gives me a blind baby, dare I be disappointed with the gift that the Master Potter has formed for me? Dare I say, "Why hast Thou made them thus?"

Just something to think about.