February 21, 2013

Born This Way

My children were both born bald. Our third (and final) child who should arrive in a few weeks will likely also be bald.

One day they will love me for posting photos of them on-line but here they are;

New Born Ariella (Turing Two  In A Few Weeks)
New Born Simeon (Turing Four This Saturday)
They take after their father in this respect; I too was a bald is beautiful baby (no picture on file sorry).

In between the birth of my son and my daughter my cousin had a son who decided on a different hair style. 

New Born Cousin Mav, lots of hair
When it comes to my family history I am told Mav is more the rule where my children and I have been more of the exception. My paternal grandmother was so upset when I was born, the first bald baby of the family that she accused my mother of burning the hair off my head by eating to many radishes.

I've never seen Meghan eat a radish so I suspect that wasn't why Simeon and Ariella were born without hair.

The man we met in the sixth sign of the gospel of John is a man that was born blind. When the disciples see him the first question they ask is, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'

All sickness, and death can be traced back to sin. Had sin never entered the world through a deliberate act of rebellion there would be no sickness and death in the world. However beyond that it is difficult to point a finger at someone and say they are experiencing sickness because of sin. This is especially true of children.

Why some children are born perfectly healthy and others are born with handicaps or outright debilitating illnesses is beyond any wisdom I have access too.

In this case Jesus tells us the man was born blind so, 'that the works of God might be displayed in him.' With those words Jesus bent down, spat on the ground to make mud. He took the mud, rubbed it on the man's eyes and commanded him to wash it off. The man obeyed and his eye's were healed. 

What I love the most about this story is Jesus can transform the hardships in my life, even ones that I have had for my entire life into testaments about God's goodness if I am willing to obey. 

What wound are you holding on to, that you could give to Jesus to transform into a story about God's glory and goodness?