A baby … a newborn baby … with ten fingers, and ten toes …
When the doctor hands a newborn to the exhausted mom, she counts …
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 , 9 … 10 … t e n, complete.
It is as though there is some primal need to count and confirm the existence of all appendages, all phalanges.
When it comes to giving birth, and becoming a mom (I cannot adequately speak for what it is to become a dad) primal is the best word to describe the experience. There is nothing like becoming a mom to make a woman realize what it is to want to save every child everywhere in the world. Newscasts of missing children, sick children, violated children stir a primal response from us that was just not as strong, not as emotion-filled before the moment when we knew, instinctively, that we were a mom.
Sometimes I think that God, in His all-knowing wisdom and understanding of we human creatures, chose to send His son to us, born of a woman, so as to draw we females to Him and to ensure that we would feel, and understand, and KNOW that hope, and peace and redemption was for us too.
Finally, after years of women experiencing a devalued existence, they were not only offered forgiveness and atonement for sin, but it was also provided through the womb of a woman, granting the opportunity to be part of the deliverance of His people. There was a oneness with the Father God, sharing in His love and pride of His own son, as well as the sorrow and separation that the crucifixion delivered.
How many of us, as women, have seen the images of Mary on cards, in nativity sets, or in stained glass windows or how many of us have heard or read the Christmas story, causing us to wonder, as Mary did, about all that had been told to her, all that was happening, and what was to come.
I believe that God was making a point, for all the world to see, of just how valuable we daughters of Eve are to Him.
“Love came down, at Christmas …
Love be yours and love be mine …”
