My wife had surgery today.  It was kind of like the end of a long, painful, very drawn out journey.  The short version is: we were trying to make a baby, but couldn’t (despite our best efforts).  We sought out the help of a doctor (a great doctor), who found an ovarian cyst which was preventing baby-making.  It is never encouraging to hear that your wife is unhealthy when all evidence shows the contrary.  We tried several different methods of medication and the like to make the cyst go away.  It did not go away, but got bigger.  So, six months into this mess she finally underwent surgery to remove the cyst.  Surgery went great – cyst is gone.

This morning waiting for surgery we were talking and Whitney asked, “So what’s the lesson in this?  What is God teaching us through all of this?”  Initially, we both thought we wouldn’t have to have surgery, that they cyst would simply disappear, a miracle of sorts, that God would divinely intervene and do what medicine could not and there in would be the reason for all of this.  I’m not saying God doesn’t work through medicine.  He does and has on our part.  It is a miracle that doctors can do what they can do.  However, seeing as how God is supernatural and all, it is logical that we would expect something supernatural to happen in this circumstance.  But the end result is pretty normal, something that happens everyday with normal people just like me and you.  So where is the “Aha!” moment?  Where is the supernatural?

I recently read a quote that basically says: “I was waiting to start some things, to start life.  I was waiting for this hindrance to be relieved and I was waiting for these obstacles to be removed.  And then I realized that these hindrances and obstacles ARE my life.” 

Perhaps the lesson is not some supernatural, mind-boggling, Aha moment.  Perhaps the lesson is that life is tough, but God through us is tougher.  We survived this personal crisis.  It wasn’t the first crisis, and it won’t be the last crisis.  We have survived, and we will survive again.  Natural life is tough.  Surviving the tough times is supernatural.

How often do we miss what God is doing because we’re looking for the supernatural when all the while He is in the natural?  I think God is much more practical than we give Him credit for.  Don’t miss God today.