Today is my daughter’s birthday. She is eight.
And as I thought about what to write about engaging Genesis today, I got to thinking about Meg.
I can remember many, many details of the day leading up to her birth. The ‘practice’ contractions that kept me up all night, then stopped at 6 a.m. The uncomfortable feeling I had all day even as I took my twins to the library and did normal things like laundry. The first real contraction that hit just at 6 p.m.
I could tell you about getting to the hospital too early and having to walk corridors in the middle of the night until they’d admit me. The crushing pain of the two-minute contractions. Then getting admitted. My doctor broke my water and warned me to be prepared to spend all day working on this. An epidural advised by a wise older nurse that let me rest after two sleepless nights. Then lunchtime. A suggestion to push on this contraction “to see what happens.” And suddenly we were moving. Her arrival at 12:20, head down but face up (what my doctor said was the hardest way to arrive that wasn’t breach). The moments after with Meg and my husband. The move to a room and my hurry to get home to my other babies.
I remember it all. And because today is her birthday, I spent time thinking back.
Engaging Genesis
And it got me thinking about Genesis 2:7: Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
I wonder if God ponders those moments. His hands pushing and molding dirt into the just the right shape. His creative force shaping it into the intricate systems and bones and organs. The care he must have taken over the face.
And then, the final breath. Leaning over the man and breathing into his nostrils, energizing him. “And man became a living creature.”
After six days, God made his crowning achievement. All of the rest of the creating came to this … this amazing creature, unlike anything else he’d made. The one with whom he would have a relationship. His friend.
I wonder if God still thinks of Adam’s birthday. If he remembers it with all the detail (or more) that I have of the births of my children.
I bet he does. And, like me, I bet he smiles.
