Crystal and her husband Nick have some ideas for Baby Girl's name, but they want to see her first, meet her first, before they make their final decision. They know what a solemn, momentous decision this is. They believe that somehow the sight of her face, her expression, her tiny hands and feet, her tiny body, will give them the familiarity, the insight they need to know her and know her name. It's a name she'll carry for all eternity. Pope Francis said these words that stop me, leave me stunned, every time I read them: "For God allows parents to choose the name He Himself will call their child for all eternity."
Pregnancies are as individual and unique as every woman is. Pregnancies can encompass morning sickness, leg cramps, gestational diabetes, toxemia, inability to eat certain foods, to hardly any symptoms at all. Yet certain things that happen are universal in all pregnancies: the fluttering across your abdomen that eventually grows into full scale kicking. And the beginning flutterings of a father and mother's dreams. What will this child look like? Act like? What will be the sound of his or her laughter? Will this child's personality resemble mine or my spouse's? What will he or she accomplish with the gift of life? How deeply will I be able to know this child who has already begun to enfold my heart in her tiny hand?
Do we ever realize that God is dreaming about this unborn child at the same time that we are? Parents are co-creating this life with God, Who says "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you." (Jeremiah 1:5). God dreams great dreams for every child growing in a mother's womb. "Every child has a place in God's heart from all eternity; once he or she is conceived, the Creator's eternal dream comes true. Let us pause to think of the great value of that embryo from the moment of conception. We need to see it with the eyes of God, who always looks beyond all appearances." (Pope Francis). For Christian parents, part of this dream is Baptism, the hope and desire to entrust this precious gift to Jesus.
Every parent's dream and prayer from the first stages of pregnancy through birth, adolescence, and adulthood, needs to be "God, I entrust this child to you. And please give me the wisdom to know and love my child with all my being, and to accept him or her fully as the person he or she is." It's a hard, demanding prayer, because our children are not us, and the paths they choose will not always be the paths that we'd choose for them. Yet it's the dream and prayer that true mature love has for these precious gifts we have both created and received.
We entrust our children to God because God knows them even more fully than we do! Pope Francis thinks deeply and beautifully about this:
"Scientific advances today allow us to know beforehand what color a child's hair will be or what illnesses they may one day suffer, because all the somatic traits of the person are written in his or her genetic code already in the embryonic stage. Yet only the Father, the Creator, fully knows the child; He alone knows his or her deepest identity and worth....Some parents feel that their child is not coming at the best time. They should ask the Lord to heal and strengthen them to accept their child fully and wholeheartedly. It is important for that child to feel wanted. He or she is not an accessory or a solution to some personal need. A child is a human being of immense worth..."
The greatest crosses for parents, the greatest blows to our dreams, occur when our children have to carry crosses that we ourselves have never had to carry. Children may be born with serious developmental or neurological disabilities; develop life-threatening illnesses or die; suffer with mental illnesses or endure traumas; go through divorces or bankruptcy. My husband and I have endured such crosses with our children, and our children are enduring them with their children. What grief and guilt we feel when we watch our children and grand-children suffer! At those times, all we can do as our hearts are plunged into darkness is cry "Father, this is my child and Your child, this is our child together. I have to trust that you know her completely and I only know her partially. I have to trust that You know what You are doing in his life. I have to trust that You will bring Your dream for them to completion. Father, cover our child with Your love!"
The joys our children give us are beyond measure. The smiles. The kisses. The unexpected rapturous hugs. The academic or sports or artistic achievements. The talents we've never had that bloom in them. The ability, sometimes, to endure far more than we've ever endured and yet somehow they triumph. They not only stretch themselves, they stretch us. They teach us all that we're capable of doing, being, and becoming. Even the child miscarried, born still-born, or who only lives for seconds or days, has impacted a parent's heart, life, and spirit for forever, even re-directed the course and mission of his or her life.
When God gives us a child, it's because He has dreams for this little life and for our lives, as our lives intertwine. We are made for each other. We reveal who we are to each other in the wonderful community and incubator of family life. Father, cover all of Your children with Your love, for our children and we their parents are Your children, dreamed about and enfolded in Your heart for forever.