Reason for everything

Day 7: The Reason for Everything

We can no more argue for the glory of God than to adore the beauty of the physical universe beyond and the universe within us. If we were to sum up everything to behold we would at once recognize a supreme designer, a Great Architect.

I suspect this is true not just with things as they are, but also with things as they will be. Meaning, events and all of history is God’s handiwork. Good or bad, especially the second one. God has all bases covered.

This is very difficult to understand. Tell that to suffering parents with their child on the throes of death. And this I experienced first-hand.

When my wife gave birth to our youngest, it was very painful for her, for us, to leave our newborn at the hospital, indefinitely. But she had a mysterious condition. Mysterious because the doctors could not give us a proper and conclusive explanation why our daughter could not feed. She was gurgling out my wife’s milk -- all milk actually -- even special formula. And the doctors said if she could not feed, she could well we know what.

And the days went by, turned to weeks – two weeks. I was going back and forth from the hospital to our house to bring with me breast milk in the hope that our daughter would finally feed. My heart broke every time I visited her there in her crib at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). A tube was put in her mouth so she would not drown in her vomit. I remember asking God why a baby must suffer. God, why allow my child to suffer? Why not just me? Why, in the first place, must we suffer as a family? Did I do so grave a sin to be punished? There are more evil people out there. Why me, why us, why our sinless daughter?

I remember praying in the hospital’s chapel for God to spare our daughter’s life. It was the week before September 8, Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception. The Gospel reading was about Mother Mary’s supreme obedience to the will of God. It was then that I realized I was praying the wrong prayer. At once, I prayed that His will be done. I only asked for the grace and the strength to accept everything. I cried unabashedly that time. So I kissed my daughter goodbye at the NICU. I remember seeing for the first time the other babies there, many of them in more excruciating conditions than my daughter. One had a heart machine monitor connected to him. I learned from the nurses that the baby was left there, abandoned actually for months by his family and that it was the nuns of the hospital sponsoring his expenses. I told my daughter how more fortunate she was.

I remember going to Baclaran that late afternoon. There was a storm then (I forgot the name, I did not care) and there were floods. I waded through the knee-deep floods just to reach the inside of the Redemptorist Church. I prayed the same prayer then and went home. I felt light. I felt it was all right. Come what may. Our daughter was in the hands of God.

My wife was crying when I told her there were no changes in our daughter’s condition. But we agreed to surrender already.

It was a couple of hours before dawn when I was awakened by the ringing of my mobile phone. There were messages from our pediatrician. She was asking me to come and bring with me breast milk. She said our daughter did not vomit anymore that whole night when the nurses fed her. I rode the wind to reach the hospital. And then she sucked milk. I waited. Our doctor said if our baby will not vomit anymore within 24 hours, she guesses she’s already well. And she was.

Up to her discharge, the doctors still could not explain what happened. We did not care. I have learned so much from that experience. Maybe, that’s why I’m here in Radical 4 knocking the door at ministry. Maybe, it was God’s purpose. To test us. To form us. After which, to entrust us. To place in our hearts a mission. All I’m sure was that through the experience God’s glory shone the brightest.* And I have been telling people since then this story.

There is a reason for everything. For me, the reason can only be for God’s glory.

* The doctors, from our pediatrician to the specialists, gave us numerous discounts. Friends and family were giving us money to foot our grown hospital bills (imagine 1. The delivery expenses of my wife, and 2. the hospitalization of our baby) that we had enough for the baptism of our baby the following month. That was the other miracle.