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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Christmas Child


Our 2nd beautiful daughter is a mere 7 and 1/2 pounds with a soaking wet diaper, but has managed to blast a monstrous hole in our day to day routine, leaving only shreds of recognizable normality. Her effect on our emotional stability has been little less.

I am sleep deprived.

So far that is the best explanation I can come up with for the emotion laden thought processes that have been swirling the mists of recent cognitive exercises. On the one extreme, I find myself reacting to mere annoyances with the intensity of dire emergencies. While on the other, I am easily sobered and rendered melancholy by the simplest reference to maternity or paternity.

In short I'm pretty pathetic - especially by my own standards.

Yes, it is a bit alarming to see such a remarkable and respectable stoicism suffering abandon. But I believe it is not all bad. Blinding though it may be, I've peered through the chinks of the adamant facade and seen a gleam which I have previously either discounted or shunned. Even with the birth of our first daughter, I was undaunted, the conqueror and champion bringing life to the world, and victory to our familial obligation.
Procreate.
Done.
And then I was content to be the victor.
And I was content.
Period.
Next objective...

My wife tells a completely different story - not about me - but about her approach to this phase of our journey. I will not tell her story for her. But she has lived without a facade around that part of her life and has drunk deeply from what I'm now sipping.

Don't worry I'm not planning on opening an orphanage or a day care. But, since the loss of our son a year ago on the 12th of this month, I have seen life, mortality, and the part I play in them in a far clearer fashion. Now with the birth and life of our daughter, my part in the saga has crystallized even a touch more.

...that to say...

I would like to communicate in the most reverent, and immensely inadequate way, how I have for the first time realized that our Lord Jesus Christ came to this world - as a little Baby. You understand what I mean, because you've been there too, when I say that though you give ascent to many concepts, there are times when concepts meet circumstances and meld to become reality for you. No one else necessarily gets the benefit of it, but YOU are keenly aware of a new reality - for YOU.
For me - this Christmas - it is the infant form of the God of the universe.

I've heard a few Christmas songs this year for the first time which bring out the question of, in essence "What was Jesus' understanding as a child of His surroundings and limitations." As I am hearing these songs, I am able to put the face of my own infant child into the scenario, and am astounded that the Creator would condescend to not just the form of his creation, but into the barest and most dependent state of its existence.

No doubt Joseph and Mary are baffled, in addition to the emotions that all the rest of us face in those first few hours and days. I suppose the one fear they needed not have was the one of losing this child. They had God's promise. Yet, undoubtedly the hosts of hell had planned His demise. In my mind's eye I can see the swords of hell's fiercest drawn as they converge on the hillside town of Bethlehem. Then - a blinding diversion among a group of shepherds, leaves them vulnerable to an assault from Heaven's mightiest. The skirmish is brief and decisive, and a soft whimper softly shakes the earth to its core.

There are a thousand questions with no answer. Did He cry? Did he relinquish his omniscience for a time? Did he immediately begin to bear the burden of our sins, or was his infancy spared such weight? I wonder.

I am left with one answer.

Thank you.

2 comments:

  1. Mom here----not sure if it will show under Dad's or my new account since it did not come to my new address. However---very interesting thoughts. I have mulled on some of those the past few Christmases. The wondering I was doing the other day was---What was Jesus aware of in the womb? For nine months---was that a long time to Him, or was it like "a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day."? Did he know what was going on in the world? And the verse that blows my mind--Jesus spoke these words to Nicodemus:"And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." What was that again? "the Son of man which is in heaven" and yet He was standing on this earth in front of Nicodemus. So was it that Jesus was in the womb, yet in Heaven. Someone who is smarter than I will have to set me straight.
    How God must love it when we think on Him, Who is worthy of all our thoughts and our praise that glorifies His name.
    It comes to my mind one of the verses I was studying in my study on the fear of the Lord being my treasure. I wanted to see what some of those treasures are. After the Strong's definition are the conclusions I came to after studying that verse.
    Psalm 25:14 (KJV)
    14 The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.
    “secret” – (Strong’s 5475) persons in close deliberations, implication: intimacy, consultation, a secret
    Those who stand in awe, admiration, and submission to the Lord, are privileged to be in His intimate company. As He speaks to us through His Word, He opens up to us through the Holy Spirit, that which He would have us to understand of Him. Through this we have blessed fellowship with Him that is foreign and impossible for those who do not fear Him.
    I share that to say that as God gives us questions, even if He does not give us answers, we have that blessed fellowship as we give Him worship by thinking on Him.
    Hoping this makes some sense.
    Proud and thankful for the man that you are andd that I see God making you into.
    Love and prayer,
    Mama

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  2. Lots of great things to reflect on! - I think I need to hire someone else to write my blog...it's so...un-interesting! I blame the fact that I am too tired to think, let alone write, with such eloquence.

    You mean Gianna isn't sleeping through the night yet? I'll pray that she'll get up to at least 6 hours very soon...Reaghan is now at a steady 8, for which we are truly thankful! :)

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