Hard Decisions

I was just sitting downstairs thinking about life and the Lord and my mind was racing so I thought I would come up here while princess Meili was sleeping and type on the blog for a bit. Now to put my thoughts down in a way that makes sense will be more difficult than I thought. I guess first I will start with Meili's appointment with the hand specialist. The appointment went well and we did find out that she has 3 little bones in her extra thumb and that she would need to have surgery to have it removed. The doctor asked me "are you sure you want to remove it?" He said "sounds like a dumb question I know but really its not causing her any problems" He then went on to tell me that some parents wait until the kids are older and then let them decide. I thought for a moment and said well my husband and I have  talked about that and we decided that it would probably be in her best interest to have it removed. For several reasons...  other kids can be mean and bully her, when she is a teenager she won't like it, and it's probably best to go ahead and do the surgery when she is young. So I said I would go ahead and schedule the surgery...when I went back to schedule the surgery the lady that usually does the scheduling was not there and so I said I would call back the next day to schedule it and left the office. Now lets go back to some thoughts I had a few weeks ago....I am actually fond of her little extra digit it is God almighty who formed her in the womb with that little extra thumb knowing all that would lie ahead in her future and that she would be abandoned...knowing she would be labeled as special needs because of it....knowing she would be our precious daughter. If it weren't for that extra thumb...her destiny would have been much  well different. Her thumb is what led her to us and God knew that from before the beginning of time.Since the day she was placed with us many people are interested in her thumb...when we were in China I will never forget when we were visiting this museum and a group of Chinese women came up to us all talking in Cantonese and they picked up Meili's hand and pointed to her extra thumb and then they proceeded to tell us(through hand motions) that we needed to cut it off! Now we thought it was really interesting at the time that they were so concerned about it and we laughed about how if they had had a knife they would have proceeded to do it for us! I remember after leaving the museum we were surprised at how it bothered them so much because we hardly notice it. Since we have been home I have been very open about telling people right away about it because I know people are curious....but lately I have been getting a lot of people that ask me "when are you going to take care of that?" or "when are you going to get that removed?" I've even had people act like I must not know its there!  Now granted I know that most people are genuinely concerned and are asking about it out of the kindness of their heart because they care for us. Some on the other hand I can tell it bothers them...Anyway I write all of this because it got me to thinking....as a parent God has given us a HUGE responsibility to care, love, and make hard decisions (that are hopefully based on the word of God) for our child. I realized that as parents God wants us to also seek him out in this descison as well...so the questions is ....what does he want us to do? Does this extra thumb serve more of a purpose in her life than I realize? As parents are we the ones to decide for her whether or not to remove it or do we leave it to her to decide after she gets older? Part of me thinks the thumb is special and that God may want to use it for her good and his glory later on in her life.......when I think about all the conversations she could have with other kids who may feel different or ashamed of the way they look...or what if it opens up or paves the way for spiritual conversations when she is older....you see her thumb tells a story....But yet she is not defined by her thumb...her worth comes from the Lord and not in her appearance. . As you can see I am wrestling with this decison ....The world says you need to look a certain way in order to be accepted...and by me removing it am I just going along with the world in that sense? Am I teaching Meili the wrong thing? I am not sure....what does God want? ultimately isn't that the only thing that matters. Now I know God can use Meili with or without the extra thumb...but when I think of all the conversations that could brought up and how she could use it for his glory...I start to think maybe I should leave it alone for now and let her decide....but then I go back to thinking about how she will already have so many questions just about the fact that she is adopted and from China that the thumb may be too much to handle especially if kids are mean about it. So I don't know...we haven't made up our minds for sure...but may the Lord be glorified in whatever decision we make and I know that if we pray for wisdom he will grant it to us. I guess in the end all of this has really made me think about questions such as...how are we different from the world? and Am I really setting a good example for my children in the way that they see me make decisions?  In the end doesn't it really all come down to vanity?  Does God see it selfish of me to want to remove it to spare my child getting teased...when he has created her beautiful the way she is and that he has plans to use it....Or is it selfish of me to leave it putting expectaions on her that may seem unfair for a child to handle or go thorugh in school all in the name of wanting her to be confident in the girl/woman God wants and created her to be?...  I guess the answer is if God does have plans to use it for his glory than I pray he would reveal to us that we are to not remove it. But if he doesn't care either way...then he would let us know. Let us not make a wrong descision in wanting to prove a point to the world at her expense either! God has created such a beautiful little girl thumb and all! She is so special and unique. Such a gift form the Lord. May the decision we make be pleasing to him. Amen