Christmas and Babies

A memory from a Christmastime eleven years ago:

The family was sitting together in the living room. The time for The Big Announcement had come.

“So,” I said to the kids. “What would you think about having another person come to live in our house with us?”

Our agreeable daughter gave an unhesitating approval. Our son, though, was more cautious. “That depends. Who would it be?”

“Well, we’re not sure yet,” his father answered. “It would be someone we’ve never met before.”

Isaac paused. “I don’t know. Would it be a boy or a girl?”

“We don’t know that yet, either,” came the reply. “All we know is that the new person would be a baby, and that it would be your brother or sister.”

Isaac thought this over. He looked at me, looked at his dad, and let his eyebrows settle into a frown. “Well, to tell you the truth," he said with great seriousness, "I don’t really like babies.”

We laughed and teased my eldest about his anti-baby stance, but I knew what he meant.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t always like babies either. Growing up I wasn't one of those girls who begged for an opportunity to hold any miniature human in sight.  A baby was, to me as a non-parent, nothing more than a noisy, wet creature with whom it was impossible to communicate.

That changed, of course, when my first child was born. Suddenly a baby was not only wet and noisy but also soft and warm and snuggly and fascinating. That baby, my baby, was a part of me, my own child, and I could not not love him.

Yes, this small person that suddenly filled my house and my hands was noisy. Like any baby not yet blessed with the gift of language, he'd start up his siren any time he needed food or a burp or a snuggle. Without a thought as to what I was doing or whether I had time for him, he would commence a quivery-lip wail, devastated by discomfort and determined to rend the heavens with his discontent until all was made right again in his me-first world.

I would come to his rescue, soothing and providing and working my hardest to meet the needs of this small, self-absorbed, noisy creature. As exasperating as his constant neediness could be, I would never leave him in his misery. I held him in my arms, whispered words of love into his ears that were not yet ready to understand, and stayed with him until all was right again.

I was not a baby person. But this baby was my baby. This child was my child. He carried a piece of my heart. And I loved him unendingly, not because he was wonderful, but because he was mine.

---------

I can’t help thinking that, much as I know He loves us, I wouldn't blame God if He didn’t really like us humans all that much.

Really, from His perspective, what’s to like? We fuss about everything, demand constant attention and think that everything is all about us. Whenever life goes a little bit wrong we oh-no and it's-not-fair and wallow in our tiny miseries and fail to see the big, beautiful goodness that is all around us.

And it must be seriously frustrating to try to communicate with us. In His Word, from the pulpit, in the very moments of our days God talks and soothes and consoles in the ears of His children, but we don't comprehend His words. We often don't even notice that He's speaking to us, and the gentle tone of His voice is lost in our feed-me, comfort-me wails.

It’s hard to truly love a child until it’s your child. But when it's yours, it carries a piece of your heart. And you love it unendingly.

The infant in the manger cried, and His Daddy’s heart had room for nothing but His Son that He had sent to a world that would not love Him as it ought. A world that would mistreat Him and reject Him.

Thirty-three years later, the same Son cried up to heaven, Father, forgive them. Forgive the world that has been so full of rejection. Forgive these foolish people who wail and fuss and don't understand.

---------

We need. We want. We make a racket and are utterly unreasonable and frankly are kind of a pain in the rear.

But through Jesus we are God's little ones. We are the children that He chooses to love, not because we are cute and cuddly but because we are unendingly His own, brought to Him by the child who had no crib for a bed.

What a blessing a child is, a gift that shows us how much we are loved. What a blessing the manger-child is, a gift that made that love possible. To tell you the truth, babies aren’t so bad after all.

First published in The Alpena News on December 24, 2016