My daughter was born the year I turned forty. With two sons already thirteen and eight, we were not expecting another child. In fact, the doctors told my wife and I that having more children was an impossibility. But, the impossible happened. The doctor’s first question was, “Do you want to terminate this pregnancy.” We were stunned. Such a consideration never entered our minds. Nine months later we were given a beautiful little girl who has blessed our lives immeasurably. I often thought of the doctor’s question when I rocked her to sleep and felt the weight of her slumbering body slump against my shoulder.
Our daughter is now grown.. Two years ago I walked her down the aisle to give her away then performed the wedding ceremony, one of the highlights of my life. Three months ago, they came home and excitedly told us they were expecting a baby, our fourth grandchild. When they gave us the news of her pregnancy, her baby was no bigger than a small marble. Three months later, we already know that our daughter’s baby is a girl. We have listened to the baby’s heartbeat and watched her dancin in the womb. All her vital organs are developed. She even has tiny fingernails and toenails.
My wife works with pregnant and parenting students in the public schools. She constantly works with girls who are pregnant, helping them have a healthy pregnancy, healthy birth, learn how to become a good parent, stay in school and have a future. With three children and three grandchildren of our own and my wife’s occupation, you would think that the process of pregnancy and birth would have become commonplace. But it hasn’t. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The older I grow and the more I witness the miracle of life by which children are birthed into the world, the more I stand in awe.
David expressed it best in Psalm 139: “For You formed my inward parts; you wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” To the prophet Jeremiah, God said, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” (Jeremiah 1:5).
Every birth, every child and every person is a miracle of God. We are all more than mere flesh and blood, brain, bone and sinew. We are made in His likeness, with the awesome freedom to choose good and evil, to bless others or to curse them. We have infinite possibilities and an immortal soul that will one day depart this mortal body. We are eternal beings living in a miraculous universe that astounds our senses.
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