"Oh, the silly little things we worry about."

The above is a quote from a friend's blog. That friend recently gave birth to a beautiful little girl with Down Syndrome. What an amazing, humbling experience it has been for her so far. I know little of the current details of her life (it's probably just newborn craziness), but I was so touched by her account of her daughter's birth. Like me, she had been disappointed with her first birth experience, which was a very high-intervention birth and where her son was born covered in mechonium. For this second birth, her main focus was to have a safer, low-intervention, low-pain (I'm assuming hypnobirth) experience. Then, when her daughter was born, she and everyone else immediately noticed that her daughter's eyes were different from the typical baby's eyes. She had been advised that, based on a prenatal screening, there was a 1 in 23 chance that the baby would have Down Syndrome (she had opted out of having amniocentesis). Before long it was confirmed.

In her blog post, after describing her aspirations to birth unmedicated, she said the above - "Oh, the silly things we worry about." I couldn't help but laugh at myself. I guess in my head I thought, "Oh the silly things we mourn over." As I've struggle over my own disappointments with nursing and have felt ungrateful for my weak body, I've also looked around and remembered that I'm surrounded by women who've faced much more serious challenges and who complain a lot less than I do. I have friends and neighbors who cannot have children or whose children have major health issues or disabilities.

Not only do they complain less, they rejoice more. Instead of focusing on the trial, they see God's miracles in response to the trial. My friend's daughter may have Down Syndrome, but she will have a wonderful life and accomplish amazing things, and she must be a very special person. These are definitely the last days, and Heavenly Father has saved some of the choicest spirits to be born. Some of those spirits are so choice that they only need to come to earth to gain a body, and some of them have either short mortal lives and/or will be innocent and incapable of sin. Such thoughts might bring little comfort when someone is in the midst of rightful despair, but when someone is filled with faith and hope, it can bring great joy to them.

I don't know if any of this makes sense, and I have little personal experience with death and disabilities so far. I don't long for such experiences. But I do know that, because of the Savior and His resurrection, death and disabilities will be conquered, and that should bring so much joy to all of us.

Nursing probably won't mean much in the next life. :) But as I mourned over the disappointments with it, a good friend reminded me that infirmities, great and small, are all a result of the Fall and will be resolved through the resurrection of Christ. How timely it is that we just celebrated Easter! He lives, and through Him all will live again and be whole.

So I hereby resolve to try a little better to rejoice in the miracles and have more peace with the trials. And, really, who couldn't rejoice over such miracles?