Storms

 It's crazy to think about the world into which we will soon be bringing a small, fragile, completely dependent child.  In five months, give or take a few days, we'll have in our arms a child that is completely dependent upon us for survival.  There are ample tales of what happens when parents actively neglect children, but new studies are beginning to reveal that children who are not loved enough, who are not held enough, do not develop properly.  This child is dependent in every way to discover what kind of world there is.

  And what kind of world is it?  Tornadoes have swept across the region, killing over three hundred, displacing thousands more, leaving the rest of us to wonder how close we were and what kind of ample fear we need to have the next time a massive thunderstorm sweeps through the country.  What kind of world is it where the poorest are the most vulnerable, due to the fact that their substandard housing is not constructed with the same veracity that wealthier housing is?  What kind of world is it when tragedy sweeps across a community and more people show up to take pictures than do to help?

  We introduce this child into a world of chaos, and often we have no answers for what goes on in this world.

  And yet, we are just as vulnerable as he/she will be.  We cannot secure our own life, our own security, against the winds of chaos and storms of life any more than the infant can.  We can promise to keep them safe, but it is a promise that we cannot keep.  Storms happen, and we do our best to prepare, but when life is tossed upside-down, there is little we can do besides weep, pray and rebuild.

  We are just as vulnerable as an infant in the face of many of life's storms, and yet we are held and loved within the hands of God, who nourishes us from the beginning.  Just as the infant does not develop if loved properly, we, too, cannot live the abundant life God has for us if we fail to understand the depth and breadth of God's love.  We live in fear if we do not understand that God is stronger than death, than tornadoes and chaos.  We live trembling in nervous anticipation about what might come next if we fail to see that our future is secure in God's hands.

  And so it is with boldness that we bring a child into this world and seek to raise it in the full knowledge of Christ's abundant love and mercy.  They will have nothing to fear, for God's love conquers all, and it is my solemn prayer that each day of this child's life will be lived in the awareness of God's abundant grace that covers every single one of our lives.