You just never know what people are going through or what just may be waiting for them around the corner.

We have some neighbors that live down the street from us who have a little baby boy. She was big pregnant with him right around the time we started trying to conceive.

I’ve shared with you all before that seeing couples pregnant or with their newborn babies can sometimes be very hard. This particular couple takes frequent walks around our block with their baby in the stroller. As time passed, and month by month was going by, it became harder and harder to see this couple on walks with their baby. Why? Because I so wanted that to be Dave and me! (I know, I know, you aren’t supposed to covet your neighbor!)

To anyone they walk by, it would seem everything is just perfect in their little world of three. But just this past week he was experiencing headaches and went to the doctor. He was told he has a cancerous tumor the size of a tennis ball in his brain. Last Thursday, they operated and were not able to get all of the tumor because it has tentacles. He is 28-years-old, and, like I said, has a baby boy under the age of one.

I say all this not to say, “Ha, their world has come crashing down too.”, but to say that I guess hearing this just gave me a huge reality check.

We’ve all heard this a thousand times, I’m sure, but we just never know what tomorrow holds. Each day is a gift. Who would have thought a seemingly healthy 28-year-old man was walking around with a tumor the size of a tennis ball in his head?

Life is tough.

I think about other blogs I’ve read, which are all linked to the right of this blog.

Who would have thought their 5-week-old baby would be taken from them and still not be back in their arms almost half a year later? (Cowtown Times)

Who would have thought their 11-week-old baby would have leukemia swimming around in his blood? (A Journey of Prayer for our Sweet Baby Boy)

Who would have thought their fourth daughter would be born only to live for two hours? And who would have thought this same family would also bury a nephew only a few months old, just two months later? (Bring the Rain)

Who would have thought their 3-month-old daughter would never wake from her nap? (Surviving Life’s Curveballs)

Who would have thought? GOD! He knew. He knows.

To me that brings out two very different emotions. One is a feeling of anger. Why? Why must babies be sick? Why must babies die? Why must all this bad stuff happen to people who love You?

And the other emotion is hope. Hope because I know the God who knows. He is Sovereign. And He works everything, the good and the bad, for good. (Romans 8:28) How He does that is beyond my comprehension because He is God and I am not. But it brings much peace to know that God is working everything for good.

I have no idea where this post came from. Usually when I sit down to write a post I have an idea of where I want to go with it. But this one…I have no clue.

I guess hearing about our neighbors just once again puts into perspective our infertility struggles. I’d take infertility problems any day over a brain tumor.

But the fact of the matter is, whatever God brings into our lives, it is ok. Ok, not in the sense that we desire our children to die or our health to decline in a matter of days, but ok in the sense that we acknowledge that God is God and He is working everything for His glory and for the ultimate good of those involved.

Please pray for my neighbors, James and Rebecca and their baby, JT. James is home from the hospital (amazing to me considering his brain surgery was only 4 days ago). They are waiting to hear what the next steps will be. Talk about waiting. Now that is the ultimate unnerving wait.

Seize the day.

- Elaine