I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. — Psalm 139:14
My son and I were in the middle of a conversation when the noise around us became too much. He struggled to hear what I was saying. His cochlear implants, which give him access to a world of sound he was not born into, were losing the battle against the background noise. And then he stopped. He looked at me and said something that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
He said he could not hear. He said God made him deaf. He said he was different. And there was a sadness in it. It was honest, uncomplicated grief of a child who wanted to hear his father’s voice the way his father could hear his, and found himself standing in a circumstance he had not chosen.
I did not have a perfect response prepared. But I knew one thing with absolute certainty. He is not different. He is exactly who God made him to be.
The psalmist writes from a place of deep and settled wonder. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. The word fearfully here does not mean frightening. It carries the idea of awe, of something so carefully and intentionally crafted that the only appropriate response is reverence. Wonderfully made. Marvelous are His works. The language is not the language of someone describing an average outcome. It is the language of someone describing a masterpiece.
God does not make mistakes. My son was not born deaf because something went wrong. He was born exactly as God intended him to be: a specific, particular, irreplaceable person whose life would carry meaning and purpose and beauty that no one else’s life could carry in exactly the same way. The cochlear implants that bridge the gap between his world and the world of sound are a gift. But they are not a correction. They accommodate a world that was not built with him fully in mind.
God built him fully in mind. A lie runs through our culture about difference. It says that anything outside the standard is less than the standard. That what does not fit the expected template is somehow incomplete. It says the child who navigates the world differently than most children is working at a disadvantage that needs to be overcome, rather than a design that needs to be understood.
But Psalm 139 will not allow that conclusion.
The God who formed us in the secret place, who knit us together before we drew our first breath, who saw our unformed substance and called it good, that God does not produce incomplete work. Every life He forms is formed with intention. Every feature He gives is given with purpose. The deafness my son carries is not an error in the design. It is part of the design. And the person he is becoming – the empathy he carries, the resilience he is building, the unique way he moves through and understands a world that does not always accommodate him – is being shaped by exactly the life God gave him.
He is not different from the image of God. He is the image of God. Fearfully and wonderfully made. A marvelous work. Exactly as he was supposed to be.
Whatever you carry that the world has told you is a disadvantage, a defect, or a deviation from the standard: bring it before the God who made you and listen to what He says about it. He is not surprised by any part of you. He is not working around it. He built it into you with the same care and intention He brought to everything else.
You are not different. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. And that my soul knoweth right well. God does not make mistakes. He makes marvels. You are one of them.
Someone Else May Need This Today
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You never know how God might use one small act of sharing to meet someone exactly where they are.
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About Another Well Ministries
Another Well Ministries exists to help people slow down, listen deeply, and encounter God in the ordinary places of life. Through devotionals, reflections, and spiritual resources, we seek to create space for faith to be formed with honesty, grace, and hope.
To learn more about the heart of the ministry or explore additional resources, visit anotherwell.org.
