Wow, what an amazing journey our family has been on this past year! I can say with certainty, that this has been the most difficult year of my life.  I believe firmly that everything that happens in our lives is within the sovereign plan of our Creator, even though it is sometimes difficult or impossible to fathom, how what is happening at the time, could be part of God’s ‘plan’. This year was one of those years, where our life’s circumstances, as we were experiencing them, were hard to reconcile as being part of God’s plan for our lives! Thankfully, I have learned (and I’m still learning) that my perspective of my circumstances is quite limited and not very good at revealing the big picture of God’s grace and His glory.

It all started in December when Erica, my wife for more than 9 years, traveled to Hong Kong to take my youngest daughter Hope to the pediatrician for a routine check-up and decided to also see her doctor for a check-up since we had just learned that she was expecting with our 5th child. I was not there, I was at home in China with our three oldest kids, trying to keep everyone on schedule with school while maintaining my work responsibilities at the university. That is when I recieved a phone call from Erica that started what felt like a nightmare – only problem was, there was no way to wake up from this, it was really happening. (I don’t blog nearly as much as Erica does, so if you follow her blog, you may recall a post back then where she shares some of the raw emotions we were experiencing as this ordeal first began.)

The circumstances were grim. In short, the doctors were saying that something horrible was wrong with my wife’s pregnancy and that she needed to have an abortion within a week or she would begin to hemorrhage and they would not be able to stop it – leading to Erica’s death as well as the death of our unborn baby. I could barely grasp how horrible both options before us were. Either I kill our baby to save my wife’s life, or I do nothing and my wife and baby will die within a week or so. To the doctors, it seemed like a no-brainer, ‘terminate’ the pregnancy and save your wife’s life! But that is easier advice to give than receive, trust me on that.

I knew that I needed to be a strong leader for Erica as we faced impossible choices, but I felt like anything but ‘strong’ and I really felt I had no ability to ‘lead’ when I myself couldn’t tell which way was up and which way was down. My emotions were raw and severe, they came in waves as I would try and suppress my emotions, put up walls around my heart, so that I could function. (After all, I still had a family that needed a dad, they still needed to eat, and they still needed the love and security that they looked to me to provide.)

Many people have said really nice and generous things to me to encourage me and help me feel better, and I appreciate every single comment, I genuinely do! However, I feel that if I merely accepted people’s compliments and praise, without revealing some of the dark truth of what was actually going on inside my heart, I’d regret it. I know that nobody who knows me thinks I’m perfect, but I’m afraid that many have given me more credit than I’m due. I’m just a regular guy who went through some times of family crisis, and I experienced many of the emotions that anyone would have also had. For example;

Denial – I think one of the emotions that kept popping up in my heart when everything first started was the feeling that this was not really happening, I wanted to deny that the nightmare I had woken up into was real. This emotion was seductive as it provided an escape from the sharp pains of reality, but it was a cruel escape, because I really did not have the option of ignoring what was happening, so coming back to reality re-opened the wounds over and over.

Loneliness – When this all began, one of the dominate emotions that I felt was the feeling of being alone. It’s kinda crazy to say you felt alone when sitting in a city with over 7 million people, but it just seemed like I was completely alone, that not another soul on the planet knew what agony I was experiencing internally and I was holding everyone at arms length, because I was so ashamed of how weak and vulnerable I was, I didn’t want anyone to know that. (I did have a couple of close friends who reached out to me and were a huge encouragement to me – but to be honest, I couldn’t even fully comprehend what I was going through, so there was no way for me to fully reveal that to those good friends.)

Guilt – Oh, this one was the worst. I was just bombarded with guilt. It was hitting me from many sides, some of which were unexpected. There was guilt for even considering the advice from the doctors to save Erica’s life by having an abortion. There was guilt for wishing that the baby would mis-carry on it’s own, saving Erica’s life and saving me from having to make that decision. There was guilt for not wanting to decide what to do. There was guilt because my faith was so weak. There was guilt because of the ‘strong’ facade I was showing others while inside I was anything but strong.  There was even guilt (and a little anger) when someone suggested this awful thing that I needed to decide was my fault and I just needed to deal with it, it was what we ‘deserved’… I don’t claim to be perfect or innocent, but I certainly could relate to Job during some of those moments.

Fear – This emotion was a giant, it was always present, and I was having to fight it every second that I was awake. The fear of losing my wife, the fear of living with the life-long consequences and emotional damage if I decided to abort our baby. The fear of an unknown future. What would happen with our family, our marriage, my job. The fear of surviving this pregnancy (via abortion – because the doctors painted the picture where that was the ONLY way she’d survive), but having my wife hate me, or become bitter or depressed. There was the fear of disregarding the advice of not one, but a whole group of doctors who knew exactly what we should do and who grew increasingly impatient with my unwillingness to allow my wife to ‘terminate’ the life of our 5th child.

Selfish – I already knew I was a very selfish person, but I was faced with this ugly truth as my selfish thoughts of how all of this was affecting ME continually crept into my thoughts. “How will it affect ME if Erica dies. How will it affect ME if my kids have no mom. How will it affect ME if I lose my job.” etc.

Sad – This one was the dull ache that seemed to go along with all the other emotions. An overpowering, sometime surging, feeling of sadness that just camped out right under the surface, needing no excuse to randomly push it’s way back to the surface. There was profound sadness at the thought of losing the love of my life or of never knowing my 5th child.

Matt Redman wrote a song last year based on Psalm 23:4 (Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me;) called “Never Once”. I still cannot listen to this song without getting a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. It is so true, even when I didn’t ‘feel’ like He was walking with me over this past year, I know that truly, never once did we ever walk alone…

Standing on this mountaintop Looking just how far we’ve come Knowing that for every step You were with us

Kneeling on this battle ground Seeing just how much You’ve done Knowing every victory Is Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way But with joy our hearts can say Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone Never once did You leave us on our own You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Scars and struggles on the way But with joy our hearts can say Never once did we ever walk alone Carried by Your constant grace Held within Your perfect peace Never once, no, we never walk alone

Never once did we ever walk alone Never once did You leave us on our own You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Every step we are breathing in Your grace Evermore we’ll be breathing out Your praise You are faithful, God, You are faithful

You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Sitting here with my healthy newborn son, Luke Thomas Webel, and my recovering wife, I am in awe of all that God has brought us through. I have a new depth to my love for Erica and for all of my FIVE children. I feel like I’ve matured in my walk with the Lord in ways that would never have been possible without the pain and struggle of the past year. I am very aware that every step we are breathing in God’s grace…

I don’t know the answer to the “Why” questions from this past year. However, I feel like God has been equipping Erica and I to use this experience to bring God glory as we honestly share our experience with others. That is why I am bothering to write this blog post, because I want to be held accountable to use this experience and not bury it. I want others going through a similar situation to know that someone else has walked this path, that it wasn’t easy, but there is hope.