I’m being brave tomorrow.

My baby girl is having a major surgery tomorrow.

Which means I’m being brave tomorrow.

You see, bravery isn’t bravado. It isn’t arrogance. It isn’t some evolved sort of inner strength that is only for a select few of us.

True bravery is looking fear in the face and stepping forward anyway.

This sort of bravery requires faith. Actually, I’d say it requires faiths, more than one.

I have faith in the surgeon and his team here in St. Louis, or else I wouldn’t have flown here from another part of the country. I have faith that Zoe won’t hate me forever when she is sore and in pain after the surgery without a clear understanding of why Mommy let this happen. I have faith that this is the right next step in managing her cerebral palsy. I have hope that the doctor’s prediction that Zoe will be able to walk independently with only a walker one day.

But above all of that and more, I have faith in a God who has known Zoe from the beginning of time, who knit her together in the womb of her first mother, who was her Father during the months that she was fatherless, who led us to the other side of the world to bring her into our family, and who declared her to be of great worth even as Taiwanese officials required us to sign a document which stated that we were adopting her with full knowledge that she was “with great defect.”

Today we go to pre-op appointments. Tomorrow we go back for the big surgery day. A week from today we go home to begin a strict post-op physical therapy schedule of 4-5 sessions a week for six months and 2-3 sessions a week for the six months after that.

And in all this, we go with God, with trepidation in my heart but also with the bravery that can only come from trusting the One who loves Zoe even more than we do.

In what ways are you having to be brave as you go with God today?

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Shannon Dingle

A recovering perfectionist, Shannon Dingle now delights in the chaos of parenting six small children. She also leads Access Ministry at Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh with her husband Lee, a role which began when special needs were something that happened in other families but not theirs (yet). You can find more of her writing about their family and ministry at Dinglefest and The Works of God Displayed. Most days are less about writing, though, and more about diapers, carpool, and meal prep, amid the logistics that come along with diagnoses of cerebral palsy, HIV, epilepsy, childhood trauma, and FASD. Her parenting journey is nothing like what she thought it would be, but she's thankful God discarded her childhood dreams and blessed her with this perfectly imperfect life instead.

Latest posts by Shannon Dingle (see all)

• self care isn’t selfish - January 4, 2016
• our child is struggling with church - November 2, 2015
• lessons learned post-surgery - October 5, 2015