The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

This past week I've been focusing on fundraising for the March of Dimes-March for Babies walk. As a result it has caused me to reflect on Ian's prematurity and has brought up some interesting thoughts and memories. I've often wondered what it is I am supposed to learn from Ian's early arrival. I'm of the mindset, that if God allows an unexpected bad situation to happen in my life, or anyone's life, there must be an opportunity to learn, grow, and benefit from the experience.

So far that theory has proven true, and some of things I've learned so far are to focus on what matters and not to take life, love, and family for granted. But even with the lessons I've learned I still had some unanswered questions, and so I did what I always tend to do when I have thoughts all over the place. I decided to have a chat with God.

God and I have long since gotten past the formalities so the conversation went a little something like this:

God, while I am appreciative of the life principles I have learned thus far, I can't wrap my mind around why you had to use something as traumatic as a premature birth to convey the message. Am I that hard-headed? Couldn't I have learned these lessons through other means?
I mean this is something that affected not only me, but my family; my child. Plus Dan and I did it right. We met, we dated, we got married, and then we had children. If you're going to have a family, that's the way it should be done. There are plenty of people out there sleeping around and when they get pregnant, you reward them with a perfectly normal and healthy pregnancy. It just seems unfair.

Anyway, as I continued in this dialogue with God, all of a sudden a little light bulb went off in my head and I took a second to really think about what I was saying. Technically, I was saying that I didn't think I deserved the trials of having a premature child, but there was a hidden implication that there were some that did deserve it, and they were the ones who didn't have the same standard of morality that I had. Now, I'm not of the belief that the inverse of a statement necessarily reveals truth, but in this situation it did. In my mind, since I did it "right", I deserved a healthy pregnancy, and while I wouldn't wish a premature birth experience upon anyone, if anybody deserved it, it was those that did not create a child within the confines of a loving, committed, and stable relationship.

When I realized that this was what I was really thinking, it was like a punch to the gut and I was disgusted with myself. I understood that I needed to make a change in my mindset. I had two options.
I could shake my head and say "Tsk, tsk" to all of those who have and will have children in less than ideal circumstances, or I could show love and compassion for both the parents and the children in those difficult circumstances. I chose the latter.

Now I don't think that this revelation was the all-encompassing reason as to why Ian came into this world 16 weeks early, but I believe that this was a principle that I needed to learn in order to become the best me I can be.

Life Lesson: Self-righteous judgment never helps anything. All it does is create an inflated ego that prevents one from experiencing true love.