Having a baby is a sign of faith. This time of year, with Christmas approaching in the Time of Covid, I’m heartened over and over by signs of faith.
Families are choosing to have babies. Babies are being born. Women celebrate their pregnancies. Father’s faces shine with joy.
This year has been a downer. It’s hard to get a handle on what our emotions should be or how we feel as 2020 comes to a close.
It’s easy to just say, “This year sucked.” No question that many people have been put in dire financial straits, having their income and livelihoods yanked out from under them with no ability to prepare. Those people hurt. They are searching. They are confused.
We are limited in the things we do and connections we make. A good friend just mentioned to me how he doesn’t see a good reason to retire until travel restrictions are lifted. Hadn’t thought of that. But his point is a good one: If you want to go places during retirement, now is not the time to choose retirement. And many have involuntarily been put in that category.
It’s all the more relevant and promising to see people forging ahead with their lives, as those families choosing to bring a new-born into the world demonstrate. They recognize the perils in the world. There have always been dangers to life and livelihood, whether it was dying from an infection 140 years ago, or getting attacked by a wild beast.
We face a different threat today, more intangible, harder for us to understand. It is not stopping the human spirit.
One of my good friends, for example, recently sent me a photo. It touched me. He and his wife got new coffee mugs, “Updated from dog grandpa (grandma) to human grandpa,” with the expected date of birth at the end. Cute stuff, and affirming.
Another recently married couple friend of mine posted a picture of the expectant wife, radiant. I am so happy for them. Both to be able to experience the job of parenthood and grandparenthood, and that they affirm faith in society.
Bringing a child into the world is the ultimate commitment and sign of love in a couple. Both of these examples (there are many others) speak to that commitment. That enhances my faith.
I see babies out with their mothers at supermarkets. This makes me smile. There is the tired and stressed look of a new-born mother that often goes along with that excursion, but you also see more deeply beneath it of that bond with the child and the implicit caring and love that is so hard duplicate in anything else you do in life.
Parenting is the ultimate sacrifice and risk-taking. Each of these pregnancies and births signify the sacrifice the parents are ready and willing to make, with knowledge of the risks in the world today.
I have great hope. I’m not about to sugar coat the world, nope. But seeing the next generation in swaddled clothing to battle the Wisconsin winters brings warmth to a bitter cold year.
Having a baby is a sign of faith. This time of year, with Christmas approaching in the Time of Covid, I’m heartened over and over by signs of faith.
Families are choosing to have babies. Babies are being born. Women celebrate their pregnancies. Father’s faces shine with joy.
This year has been a downer. It’s hard to get a handle on what our emotions should be or how we feel as 2020 comes to a close.
It’s easy to just say, “This year sucked.” No question that many people have been put in dire financial straits, having their income and livelihoods yanked out from under them with no ability to prepare. Those people hurt. They are searching. They are confused.
We are limited in the things we do and connections we make. A good friend just mentioned to me how he doesn’t see a good reason to retire until travel restrictions are lifted. Hadn’t thought of that. But his point is a good one: If you want to go places during retirement, now is not the time to choose retirement. And many have involuntarily been put in that category.
It’s all the more relevant and promising to see people forging ahead with their lives, as those families choosing to bring a new-born into the world demonstrate. They recognize the perils in the world. There have always been dangers to life and livelihood, whether it was dying from an infection 140 years ago, or getting attacked by a wild beast.
We face a different threat today, more intangible, harder for us to understand. It is not stopping the human spirit.
One of my good friends, for example, recently sent me a photo. It touched me. He and his wife got new coffee mugs, “Updated from dog grandpa (grandma) to human grandpa,” with the expected date of birth at the end. Cute stuff, and affirming.
Another recently married couple friend of mine posted a picture of the expectant wife, radiant. I am so happy for them. Both to be able to experience the job of parenthood and grandparenthood, and that they affirm faith in society.
Bringing a child into the world is the ultimate commitment and sign of love in a couple. Both of these examples (there are many others) speak to that commitment. That enhances my faith.
I see babies out with their mothers at supermarkets. This makes me smile. There is the tired and stressed look of a new-born mother that often goes along with that excursion, but you also see more deeply beneath it of that bond with the child and the implicit caring and love that is so hard duplicate in anything else you do in life.
Parenting is the ultimate sacrifice and risk-taking. Each of these pregnancies and births signify the sacrifice the parents are ready and willing to make, with knowledge of the risks in the world today.
I have great hope. I’m not about to sugar coat the world, nope. But seeing the next generation in swaddled clothing to battle the Wisconsin winters brings warmth to a bitter cold year.