When dreams die in the birthing
It was the sixth-grade concert, and our own Boy Three was just there to the right, third row up, standing stiffly amidst a sea of his classmates. That green shirt we’d picked out on our shopping trip the other night looked great, I thought, gratified, and thanked my lucky stars that I’d thought to pick up a new pair of khakis as well.
He looked so pink and vital as he stood there that I felt my heart move in gratitude toward the One Who’d given him a healthy one after all. It was the boy to the far left of the stage, though, that moved my heart in a different way, and I found myself unable to look away.
Such a handsome fellow he was, and I noted that his mother, too, chosen a nice pair of khakis and paired it with the perfect plaid shirt and brown shoes. His hands moved in time with the music; up and down, up and down in that peculiar way of a handicapped child.
I watched him, riveted, as he stood perfectly still except for a slight bobbing motion and that movement of his hands. To my surprise, he was keeping perfect time. In between songs, he would stop, waiting. As the next song began, there he went again, marking out the perfect beat with those hands.
All across those risers, shoulder to shoulder, stood children of all shapes and sizes, boys and girls on whom rested such fond hopes and dreams of the parents assembled there. So many dreams…
But what about that handsome boy in the khakis? What about that beautiful girl down front in the wheelchair? What about their parents? How many hopes and dreams for the future had been crushed? How many cries had arisen from anguished throats? How many unanswered whys…?
What is it like when dreams die in a delivery room? What agony wrings the heart of a mama, of a daddy, when the fondest hopes and wishes die in the birthing? How does frail humanity accept the ‘no’ and learn to live in hope of the great and glorious ‘yes’ of the resurrection?
He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. He knows – He does! – that it’s hard to be us.
Our friend, Jesus, the living Christ, intercedes for those who cannot shape their pain into words, who can do naught but groan. For these, He bends low to hear. He abides always and ever. And He will come one day, whisking us away to a land of joy unspeakable and full of glory.
Even so, Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!