On Tuesday, our thirty-sixth wedding anniversary, our first grandchild was born in Colorado. In God's sweet timing, I arrived on the right day. (Photos will be up soon on www.rabbittsoupcom ) He was expected next week, but when I left Salina, Kansas at 6 a.m. on the second day of my two-day drive, my phone tingled with a text message: "Guess where I am." Her water had broken at midnight and she was in the hospital. Praying across the prairie, I pondered the labor process.
Step by step, a child is born. Every birth proceeds from beginning to middle to delivery. The water breaks, the contractions start, the pushing begins. It's a messy process and not always orderly. Life begins as life continues. Messy and disorderly sometimes, but moving towards a goal.
Line upon line, precept upon precept, God is bringing to birth his goal of a family. Beginning with "Let there be light," continuing with the light of the world sent into the darkness of our first parent's sin, and finishing with a golden kingdom beyond our imagination, God is giving life to his vision. Just like my daughter and son-in-law, we will all consider the end worth the labor.
Father, thank you for your vision. May we see more clearly what you see and, like you, may we count the birth-pangs worth the kingdom.