By Kimberly Campbell 
Sometimes things come out of my mouth, but my heart is screaming something totally different. I remember standing up from my chair in my child’s eye doctor’s office a few weeks ago. He said, oh, we’ll just do surgery, it’s easy, I do it all the time, only about a 15% chance of losing the eye. My mouth: “sure, OK.” My heart: “Only 15%, that’s a huge risk. What if I opt to do this surgery for my son and he winds up blind because of me. I mean, that’s a huge weight to bear. Isn’t that above my pay grade?”
As I walked to the check out desk, and to schedule the surgery, my eyes filled with tears. My son didn’t know a thing was wrong, my doctor only reassured me of the ease and regularity of the surgery, and my heart was trying to confess to itself that God is so much bigger than sight, or blindness, patches or surgeries.
I learned something so deep and abiding in those few seconds, in these past three weeks, and Tuesday at my son’s (successful) eye surgery: God has a bigger plan for my kids than I do.
Let me say that again. God – the big God, the creator of everything including my heart and my son – he is the master designer of all things and holds all things together in his very capable and sufficient and perfect hands – and he has an amazing plan for my son – whether he can see, play ball, run fast, learn big words, understand, talk right. Whether he eventually goes to college on a full scholarship, joins the military, marries his high school sweetheart. Whether he outlives me and sits in a rocking chair watching the sunset at 90 or whether he dies before his 4th birthday. God has an amazing plan for his life.
And I learned that with God’s amazing, perfect, unknown plan – I have to be willing to let that plan be in charge. I have to pray for wisdom, guidance, and work hard as a parent to take care of him, love him, and point him to Christ – but I also have to “let go and let God” as they say. I have to be willing to let him do what God wants him to do with his life. I am not in control. Oh, I often think I am, and I so desperately want to be – but God really is. Control is something so deeply rooted in me that it is so hard to root out.
Father – I pray that you would root control out of my life and heart. I pray Father that you would show us your perfect exciting big adventure plan for our sons. I pray that you would fill his days with dinosaurs, animals, and compassion (his favorite things). I pray that you would dig his heart deep into your truth and a knowledge and love for you. I pray that as he grows, that I would grow to, in my willingness to lay down my plans for him and to have your plans take over. And I do praise you for the successful eye surgery and that little red dinosaur that made him so happy as he was drifting off to sleep. You are a good, good Father. Through Jesus – Amen
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