Remember & Return
Our, long-awaited son was born on Ash Wednesday. Not the obvious choice as far as church holidays to choose from, when celebrating new life after years of infertility. Easter or Christmas would have been the more apparent choices - the illustration of waiting and pain woven into God's plan of redemption and new life. But Ash Wednesday...a day to recognize our immortality? The inevitability of death? It doesn't necessarily scream, "Welcome to world, baby James." But as I've had almost a year to reflect on this, I believe I've made the connection. The promise of dying leads us to His promise of belonging. Before James, we suffered two miscarriages. It's a different kind of death. The death takes place in your own living, breathing, growing body. Death occurs within the living. It can be very difficult to separate shame when it is so physically and emotionally intimate. "The Lord gave and the Lord takes away." (Job 1:21). As I was pregnant ...
