“Mr. Chanski, we have options.”

That’s what the radiologist said to me and my wife Dianne nearly 24 years ago when he saw in the ultrasound that our pre-born son had a spinal defect.  He was suggesting an abortion.

In those day, we wept a lot.

Our third born son, Austin, was married on Saturday to Anne Schmidt — happy, glad, laughter-filled, joyous day! He was born with spina-bifida, and back then we never thought he’d get out of a wheelchair. Now he has not only a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, but also a bride on his way to Jamaica.

“Weeping may endure for a night; but a shout of joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).

Thomas Brooks writes:

Their mourning shall last but till morning. God will turn their winter’s night into a summer’s day, their sighing into singing, their grief into gladness, their mourning into music, their bitter into sweet, their wilderness into a paradise. The life of a Christian is filled up with interchanges of sickness and health, weakness and strength, want and wealth, disgrace and honour, crosses, and comforts, miseries and mercies, joys and sorrows, mirth and mourning; all honey would harm us, all wormwood would undo us; a composition of both is the best way in the world to keep our souls in a healthy constitution. It is best and most for the health of the soul that the south wind of mercy, and the north wind of adversity, do both blow upon it; and though every wind that blows shall blow good to the saints, yet certainly their sins die most, and their graces thrive best, when they are under the drying, nipping north wind of calamity, as well as under the warm, cherishing south wind of mercy and prosperity.