Is Everything Going to be Okay?

by Sarah Huth

There is a light over my hospital room door that is flashing red and beeping, alerting the hospital staff that my blood pressure is over 200/90. The anesthesiologist hands me a pen while explaining the risks of a C-Section delivery while a nurse “prepares” me for the surgery. I am writhing in pain and signing my name and glancing at the worried eyes of my husband and parents. I am 33 weeks pregnant, and am about to be rushed down the hall for an emergency C-Section due to quick onset, severe Pre-eclampsia. The nurse finally says I am ready to go and unlocks my bed and starts to push me out the door.

I grab her arm, look into her eyes, and ask “is everything going to be okay?” She looks at me with sympathy in her eyes, and said “oh honey, I don’t know – I can’t say that.”

I’ll admit I was angry. I knew she couldn’t really promise me that everything would be okay, but darn it – I wanted her to lie to me and say, “of course everything will be okay! You and your baby will be just fine!” Thankfully, everything was okay. It was a rough start with a 3 ½ week NICU stay, but today I have a healthy, energetic 6 year old boy.

I continued to think about that nurse and what she said. I was still angry that the nurse didn’t lie to me to make me feel better at such a scary time. Isn’t that was she was supposed to do? Comfort me? Even if things weren’t okay, at least I would have felt a little better…

But that’s not life, is it? Everything is not always okay, and sometimes our world comes crashing down with a devastating diagnosis, horrible violence, or the loss of someone we loved too much to lose. There was a time I wanted to believe that God was telling me everything would always be okay, no matter what happened, or what choices I made; even if only to make me feel better. As I grow in my spirituality and my relationship with Christ, I am realizing something: everything might not always be okay. I realize now how brave my nurse was in the way she answered me. We don’t know what our future holds in this world. But we do have the assurance that Christ is love, no matter what else is spinning out of control. We always have this blessed assurance of Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Keep Christ as your equilibrium, even when the bottom falls out. Rest in the assurance that this world is not our home, but as believers, our eternity is with Him. That is a beautiful certainty in a world full of frightening uncertainties.