On Birthdays and Beginnings

Last night I watch another of those Old English films that I sometimes bring home for myself. One line in particular struck me,"What stumbling ways a new soul is begun." This is Keates response to his friend. The new soul is the child growing inside the pregnant kitchen maid. Keates is determined to find the father and force him to accept the responsibility of his child. He brings the matter to his friend only to discover that his friend is the reluctant father.

I cannot help but think, "What stumbling ways I was begun."

I am surprised how often I discover people I know and love who, like the poet's friend, are ready-and-willing to abandon the inconvenient child. It's as if they belong to the "I Was Planned And Wanted" club, or "My Children Were Planned And Wanted." Anyone who does not belong to the club does not deserve protecting, and so they rationalize away the lives of the innocent. I never had the "luxury" of these arrogant thoughts. My new soul stumbled into life within a sixteen-year-old "maid." By the time I was born my father was eighteen, and terrified. I can't help but have compassion on him. Two weeks ago I sat in church and watched a tiny four month old baby girl trying to catch the eye of my eighteen year old son from the pew in front of us. As she smiled into his face I had the uncanny realization that I would have been only a couple of months older than this child when my birth dad was Jordan's age. It would be a challenge for my son to accept such a responsibility, but to walk away from it...

There are those who would coldly say that I never should have been born. Indeed, many of my brethren are killed each year for the offense of having stumbled into life "inconvenient." As if the child must be held accountable for the circumstances of his or her birth. It was not easy being born to teenage parents. Yet, I thank God for allowing me to know first hand that we all begin life stumbling... not by our own volition, not as an "inconvenience," but as tiny souls that He placed here for a purpose. I thank God for the unexpected gifts of souls that have "stumbled" into my life. And every birthday I cannot help but pause and consider the humble beginnings of my own story;}