Babies and Christmas
I don't usually post such personal observations here, but I can't resist.
I have a beautiful 5-month-old baby daughter. I's almost 10:30 p.m., and she is sleeping, and I love to peek at her. Because it's the Christmas season, nearly all of the images of Christ that we see are of him as a newborn babe, and I just can't help scooping her up and kissing all over her sweet little pudgy baby face, and thinking that that's what Christmas is all about: babies. New life, and innocence, and complete vulnerability, and transformation.
Yes, transformation. Because that's what becoming a mother (parent) does - it transforms you. With absolutely everything I do with both of my children, I tell myself that God is watching -- would He be proud of the way I am treating the children He has entrusted to me, those precious angels that I waited so long for?
And there you are -- yet another way in which Christmas is about babies -- they are the penultimate gift.
There is much more that I feel I want to say, but it's late, and I am not sure how to articulate it. I guess I can say that I am ecstatically grateful to have these two beautiful children in my life. And I am ashamed that there was ever a time in my life when I thought I didn't want children. I am saddened beyond words that we live in a culture that treats babies like trash. And I feel discontented, in that I want to do more about that, and am not sure how to go about it.
I read this evening a post in my friend Ashli's blog, in which a reader offered a prayer in the spirit of the season - something about room at the inn - and in the heart. That seems very powerful to me. When our children come to us, do we make room for them? Isn't every child's creation in some small part the arrival of God in our midst over and over again?
I wish I would have felt like this twenty years ago. I wish I would have felt like this my whole life. I hope I can raise my beautiful son and daughter to feel their whole lives the way I feel now.
I have a beautiful 5-month-old baby daughter. I's almost 10:30 p.m., and she is sleeping, and I love to peek at her. Because it's the Christmas season, nearly all of the images of Christ that we see are of him as a newborn babe, and I just can't help scooping her up and kissing all over her sweet little pudgy baby face, and thinking that that's what Christmas is all about: babies. New life, and innocence, and complete vulnerability, and transformation.
Yes, transformation. Because that's what becoming a mother (parent) does - it transforms you. With absolutely everything I do with both of my children, I tell myself that God is watching -- would He be proud of the way I am treating the children He has entrusted to me, those precious angels that I waited so long for?
And there you are -- yet another way in which Christmas is about babies -- they are the penultimate gift.
There is much more that I feel I want to say, but it's late, and I am not sure how to articulate it. I guess I can say that I am ecstatically grateful to have these two beautiful children in my life. And I am ashamed that there was ever a time in my life when I thought I didn't want children. I am saddened beyond words that we live in a culture that treats babies like trash. And I feel discontented, in that I want to do more about that, and am not sure how to go about it.
I read this evening a post in my friend Ashli's blog, in which a reader offered a prayer in the spirit of the season - something about room at the inn - and in the heart. That seems very powerful to me. When our children come to us, do we make room for them? Isn't every child's creation in some small part the arrival of God in our midst over and over again?
I wish I would have felt like this twenty years ago. I wish I would have felt like this my whole life. I hope I can raise my beautiful son and daughter to feel their whole lives the way I feel now.
posted by Portia Sterling | 10:14 PM
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