Joyful Christmas Season! God’s Unspeakable Gift

God’s Unspeakable Gift

The baby exited the womb, silent. The doctor brought the firstborn, bathed in blood, to the mother’s side. The child never breathed outside her mother’s womb. Stillborn. This baby never kicked, never flailed, never cooed, never suckled.

As the mother stared into the dim light of recovery, an all consuming weakness threaded through her limbs and body.  Her blood felt no stronger than water. A numb, incomprehensible, and desensitizing flood washed over her. Would she drown?

The longing for her child built. Yet her arms would remain empty. A need so great and a pain so sharp intensified with every jerk of suffocating breath, but only held barren promise. 

Would she have chosen this? Never. Never.

But hadn’t death decided for her? And wasn’t it final? The clock could not turn back, and nothing could change the wretched outcome. Time steadily ticked onward, leaving her behind in a wrenching, hollow hole.

But then, her shoulders pinched together, and her heart clenched like a fist as the swell of a warm embrace swept her body and eased her back into feeling alive. The breath of God whispered in her ear, that He was near. Close. Stroking her tender, wounded spirit.

Tears streamed. It was as though heaven tenderly blew damp curls from her forehead, warmed the cold ache of hurt, eased the cramping of childbirth, and suspended her in a dimension unearthly and cocooned.

What had God done?

Understanding rushed into a place far deeper than her intellect. Just what had God, the Father, freely given, but His only Son, though the pain of such an act of suffering would crush His heart?

He offered His child, His babe... as an Unspeakable Gift to all. What unfathomable love and sacrifice could bring God to do such a thing, a Father with a warrior’s devotion to protect His young and a mother’s gentle and compassionate spirit to nurture a human soul with diligent care? How?

Though it bruised and lashed and severed Him, God freely gave His child as an Unspeakable Gift. What brand of love could be so exacting and purposeful and real? The Word says it pleased God to do this for each… precious… human… one. The blood of His son a purchase for our redemption. What love...

Thanks be to God for his Unspeakable (indescribable and unutterable) Gift.

(2 Corinthians 9:15)

This is my story... I grieved the months following this. Some days I was angry. Other days,  I was depressed. But I was never without hope because God the Father was by my side, and  I could not deny His love for me. God. My greatest Sympathizer in the struggle, my greatest Encourager when I felt without hope, and my greatest Comforter when I sat lonely nights in an empty nursery, arms aching to hold my daughter. He loves You, dear ones. Listen for His whispers...