Should

Today I went to the mom-baby floor of the hospital where my daughter was born to drop off some of the milk I am donating.  All around me were images reminding me how things should have been.  The harried first-time dad fetching the carseat from the parking lot.  The joyful visitors peeking their heads in a room to see if mom and baby were awake.  The lab where I took my daughter for her heel prick when she was exactly as old as Arthur would be today.  The nurse wheeling a new family toward the elevators, chatting happily with the mom about her little boy's stats.  I wasn't prepared for how hard it would be to see all of this.

Ever since we found out that our child's life would not be "normal", I've tried not to dwell on the "shoulds".

In the last week, though, I've given in.  It's impossible to ignore how things should have been.  When I sit on the couch in the middle of the night, I can't help but think of how I should be nursing my son.  When I wake up in the early morning light, I look over by my dresser where the bassinet should be.  When I physically have to sit down and rest, I think of how I should have a baby napping on my chest.  When all my family is gathered together, I imagine them proudly fighting over who gets to hold Arthur next.  When we get out of the car, there's only one carseat to unbuckle, not two.

Certainly these things should have been.  Certainly I can grieve all these normal moments that I'll never have with Arthur.

But that's only one aspect of the word "should".  God has allowed me to grieve these little losses without overwhelming bitterness because I know there's more to "should".

Theologians explain the two sides of "should" as God's preceptive and decretive will.  There's the "should" of a perfect world where everyone and everything obeys God's commands, where there is no sin, no rebellion, no heartache.  This is the "should" of God's preceptive will.  This is the "should" that I am mourning.  In a perfect world, everything would be as it should be, and my son would be thriving and growing in my arms.

Then there's the "should" of reality.  God isn't stymied or surprised by the sin that mars our world.  He wasn't somehow put on the defensive when all creation fell.  The happenstances of my life are not His plan B.  They are a part of God's decretive will.  Despite the fact that His preceptive will is not being followed, He is in perfect, sovereign control of every event.  Nothing happens that "shouldn't" happen according to His decretive will.

I've always had an interesting relationship with the concept of God's will.  Probably because it doesn't always line up with my will or because there isn't a flashing sign at every fork in the road of my life telling me which way to go...  This idea that something can be both against God's will and a part of God's will is rather confusing.

The best explanation of the two sides of God's will I ever received came from my father.  He told me to think about when Jesus died.  Jesus shouldn't have been hated by the very people He came to save.  He shouldn't have been condemned to death by a man who knew He was innocent.  He shouldn't have had to suffer and die.  Everything about those hours in Jesus' life should have been different.  Of all the unjust, unfair, wrong, sad, events in human history, this was the worst. 

And yet of all the moments in human history, this was the moment at the center of God's plan to redeem mankind.  Jesus' death was the most planned and anticipated event in time.  The Bible even says that God was pleased at Christ's sacrifice (Isaiah 53:10).

I am glad I serve a God who is so powerful that He can make even the most awful, ugly events bring about the greatest good. 

I can weep for what should have been.  God's preceptive will was broken when my son died.  It isn't right.

But I don't have to despair.  God purposed from before the world began to put Arthur in our family and to take him away.  My God, who planned from eternity past to allow His own Son to die unjustly in order to save me.  My God, who can make bests out of wrongs.