Celebrating Life

We have all said or heard the words.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.
However, it was not stockings that were hung on the mantel.
This time, it was something much different.

This time, small clothespins held Onesies, hats, socks, and baby mittens.
This time we were all gathered to celebrate the upcoming birth of a baby.
Forty women came to our home for a baby shower.
It was a day to rejoice in anticipation.

Some women watched my daughter grow up.
Other women went to college with her and have remained close friends.
Still others are teachers and work with my daughter.
All came with one purpose: to fellowship and celebrate a life.

I looked around the family room at four other pregnant women.
Including my daughter, five new little lives will be coming into the world.
By the early fall, all of these babies will be born.
For now, we all wait.

I rejoiced in my heart for the blessing of new life.
I have written a quote from Michael Card on many baby cards that I have sent.
When God gives a gift, He wraps it up in a child.
Five precious gifts will be here in a short time.

Sitting next to my daughter, I looked up to the bridge that goes over our family room.
Sitting up there on the wicker furniture, were all of her college friends.
They actually had the best seat in the house.
I thought of all the life that has happened since they graduated ten years ago.

I thought of the five little lives that will be entering the world.
Five little lives, for which God has a purpose.
The who and the when are up to God.
It amazes me that God puts the children into our hands for us to raise.

I prayed in our kitchen before we all ate our lunch.
I prayed the verse that was on the baby shower invitation.
The verse applies to this precious baby for which our family is waiting.
The verse applies to all of us.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:13,14)

We need to remember that truth.
We think of that verse in terms of an unborn baby in the mother’s womb.
However, that verse is true for every one of us.
We are knit in our mother’s womb; we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Fearfully.
Wonderfully.
Knitted.
Secure in a secret place until God decides it is time for us to be born.

How we need Him.
How we need God’s help in order raise a child.
Conception and birth are in His hands.
In that secret place, God creates, God sees, and God knits.

We are in awe.
We stand amazed.
We are humble before Him.
We are so grateful.

Five little lives to train.
Five little lives to nurture.
Five little lives to cherish.
Five little lives for which we pray.

Five little families are expanding.
Three women are having their first baby.
Two women are having their third baby.
One woman came to the shower after just giving birth to a son a few weeks ago.

And I rejoiced.
I looked at the mantel and saw the clothesline with baby items for my daughter.
Soon a little baby will wear those Onesies, hats, socks, and baby mittens.
Soon, what was decoration for the shower will be worn and used by my grandbaby.

I prayed for my daughter and her husband as they become parents.
I prayed for God’s help as they raise this child for Him.
I prayed that this child will come to faith early.
I prayed that this child will know and love our Lord Jesus.

That is my prayer for the other four babies as well.
We are a community of women standing around my daughter.
By extension, we are a community of women standing around the other four women.
These children are all made in the image of God.

We asked each women to do something before they left our home.
My daughter brought the Bible that she and her husband had at their wedding reception.
She wanted everyone to highlight a verse for their precious child and for them as parents.
There was room in the margin for each woman to write something as well.

What a blessing to see each woman stop and do that for my daughter.
Each woman left our home with two things.
One was a bookmark that matched the invitations and had Psalm 139:13,14 on it.
The other was a lapel pin.

I requested the lapel pins from our local crisis pregnancy center.
Tiny feet were attached to a card that simply said, Precious Feet.
The little feet are the exact size and shape of a ten-week unborn baby’s feet.
Inside the card, the development of the unborn baby is described.

It was meant to be a reminder of our amazing Creator God.
The God who knits us in that secret place of our mother’s womb.
The God who makes us, fearfully and wonderfully.
The God who never takes His eye off of us for an instant, even and most especially in the womb.

Life matters.
Location does not determine the importance of a life.
My daughter and the other four pregnant women know that they are carrying a child.
I watched each of them hold their bellies tenderly without even knowing it.

Life was all around us in our family room.
Life on this side of the womb.
Life on the other side of the womb.
Abundant life was all around us because of our Creator God.