The desire to give birth to your own child is overwhelming.  In 1988, I got pregnant, I had been married two years and when the test came back I was ecstatic.  I remember lying in bed imagining the child growing and wondering what it will be like to feel it moving in me. Would it be a girl or a boy?  What would their name be?  In my 11 week when I had a miscarriage. The longing, the yearning, the helplessness and the physical ache created a thirst begging to be quenched.  I could have just let it go. Stop hoping but deep within I could not.  The desire of my heart came in other ways.

All the adjectives I used to describe my desire: longing, yearning, helplessness and physical ache are all a part of waiting for something hoped for.  When my Nephew was born, It was the first time I got to be present at any birth. I was the first person to hold him, to look into his eyes and he in mine.  I was in awe of the innocence and the beauty, the love without condition and the deep sense of how totally vulnerable and depended this baby was.

The beginning of the Christian Story is truly amazing when you consider that God, Creator of all things. comes into the world like the rest of us,  a baby. God’s desire, longing, yearning need  to know and be known  determined the  course which would be taken to make it so.  The Christ Child enters the world not as a grown man but as innocent and beautiful and totally vulnerable and dependent on a human mother to survive, to love and nurture him unconditionally.  This is truly overwhelming when you stop and think about it.  He became like us so that we could become like him.

I am convinced just as God’s yearning is to know and be known by us, we also have the yearning to know and be known by God.  It is not uncommon for people to look for God when they are vulnerable and at the end of themselves. I do not believe people turn to God simply out of desperation. I believe God is able to reach us because we have lowered our defenses and are more open.  This kind of vulnerability is vital. When we are in that place there is no one to look to but God.  The Christ knows that vulnerability is vital because as a baby He had no one else to look to but his mother and father.

The song , “Mary Did You Know”  By Mark Lowry  speaks to this great truth in a introspective way.

[Verse 1]
Mary did you know that your baby boy will some day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you’ve delivered, will soon deliver you.

[Verse 2]
Mary did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when you kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.

Oh Mary did you know

The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again.
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak, the praises of the lamb

[Verse 3]
Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you’re holding is the great I am…

Will you consider what Great Love God has for you. will you think about what he did to know and be known by you?  His desire caused him to come into the world as a baby needing people to take care of him?   Will you stop resisting and let yourself become like a child, vulnerable and depended and allow God to care for you?  God loves you unconditionally not because of anything good you have done. He love you because you are a beloved child?