“I place the small headphones in my ear and listen as you somersault back and forth between the walls your mother built for you”, writes Clint Smith to his first child, “I am here, I feel you say. I am still here.” These lines are written on the heels of a diagnosis that filled the expectant parents with worry, wondering if they would ever get to hold their baby, alive and well, in their arms. “Your mother and I smile a mix of joy and relief and marvel at all that you have already given us” he continues, “Our lives, an endless procession of doctors’ appointments and lab texts and moments just like this one. But some days, I worry that we are welcoming you into the flames of a world that is burning. Some days, I am afraid that I am more kindling than water.”Smith’s last words shook me. I read them before Theodore was born, and I am still thinking about them now. During the pregnancy, my whole focus was making sure that the baby and mother were healthy and well. I never stopped to think about how the one welcoming baby into the world and bringing both of them home was doing. I thought plenty about the bad shape of the world my son was being born into, but I never wondered about my own shape. Was I kindling or water? In other words, am I part of the problem, feeding the fire of violence and selfishness that threatens to consume all that is good and beautiful, or am I water, an agent of peace and hope in the hands of my Maker?

The question matters for two reasons. First, because the gift of a new life is too precious to put it in the hands of selfish and violent men. A child deserves, at the very least, a parent who seeks to be made water. Why? Because, and this is my second reason, a parent that is being transformed into water is a child whose parents are in the hands of God. Jesus himself says during his Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). Being water, no matter how muddy, is a sign of belonging to He who became flesh, lived, died and resurrected to redeem young and old.

I am thankful that Theo is part of my family. I also feel incredibly unworthy of him, which moves to want to be made, by the Holy Spirit, cleaner and more refreshing water day by day. In a way, this is exactly what God did with humanity when giving them the Baby in the Manger. He gifted them the most precious gift, of which they were, we were, infinitely unworthy. Yet, those who welcomed the baby with open arms, slowly but surely stopped setting the world on fire, and became messengers of Good News. Creation would not burn up forever! Healing and new life were coming!