"You are beautiful."
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| (Image courtesy of author.) |
As soon as little Brielle was born, and the doctor showed her to us, my wife and I thought she was the most beautiful baby on the face of the earth. And at four days old, she looks even more beautiful than she did when she was first born. We often tell her, "You are so beautiful."
But I was struck early on with the fact that Brielle did not choose her looks. She did not choose her parents. She did not choose to be brought into the world. She did not cause her cells to split and grow to form tissue and organs while in the womb. She did absolutely nothing to be beautiful, yet there was a cause to her existence; there was a purpose to her life. But from where did she receive it? She received all these things and much more from the righteous, gracious, loving hand of the Creator King.
Human beings are thieves. We seek to rob God of His creativity, His sovereignty, His sufficient grace, His laws which govern this world - and through thievery, deliver them all over to chance or humanistic power. It is in our nature to sin against God and set ourselves up as the supreme being. This is revealed in many of the things we say, even in our telling our daughter, "You are beautiful."
Look at the first sentence of this article, even. "My wife and I had our first baby...." The focus is on the efforts of my wife and I, as if we did something to form and knit this baby together; as if we did something to give her life and should feel accomplished.
A more accurate translation of what happened last Friday would read something like this: "The gracious Lord God, creator of all things and giver of all life, blessed us with our first baby last Friday. We are the recipients of His divine grace, eternal power, and invisible qualities; beneficiaries of His natural laws which govern all His creation."
A more accurate way of declaring the beauty of our daughter is to say this: "God most certainly declared His loving-kindness, His grace, His eternal power, His divine nature, His righteousness, His justice, His perfection, His creativity, His glory - all in the life of you, Brielle. Our God is great and deserving of praise that He would sovereignly cause you to be beautiful, cause your cells to split to form tissue and organs, cause you to have purpose." This is our God! He is gracious and unprecedented in showing His loving-kindness.
Even now, Brielle is swaddled, lying next to me on the couch, her warm body against my leg. Every once in a while she twitches or yawns or "squeaks". She is sleeping and she is beautiful. But to know that all of who she is, is cradled in the arms of God above is to know our sovereign Lord and to praise Him for His glory.
"For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, namely His divine nature and eternal power, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (Romans 1:20). To look at Brielle and attribute her beautiful form and life to anyone or anything other than the one true God is to usurp the throne of glory from the God and Creator of all. Even this newborn babe has time that is marked out specifically for her: she will be here but a vapor, and then she will be no more. How great it is to know that the sovereign Lord God is watching over His creation, and that His glory is graciously and undeservedly revealed to us in the form of this little baby.
What, then, shall we say to those who are not as beautiful or not as healthy as our baby? Should we declare God to be unfaithful or ungracious or unfair? By no means! But we shall declare God to be what He is in all things, for He has given the gift of life to the ugly and the beautiful (I'm using human descriptive words). He has given oxygen to all who are still alive. He has graciously sustained all things, and all things were created for His unique purpose (Colossians 1:16).
In closing, I will continue to tell Brielle that she is beautiful - even as beautiful as her mother! But when I say it, I will know in my heart that it is the Lord God who is to be praised for His creation, for His unseen qualities are seen in what we see in her.
[In addition: With the election season coming up, to know there are people running for leadership positions who would seek to allow babies - who reveal the glory of God - to be murdered is an abomination against God. They will be judged accordingly, for God is against the wicked always, but His grace He extends to all those who would repent and surrender to His righteous rule. We must uphold the laws of God during this election season, both in our voting and in our endorsements; namely, that all life is a gift from Him.]
"For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you" (Psalm 139:13-18).
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