HIS LEGS, HER HEART

What part of your children do you love the most? Maybe it's his crater-deep dimples. Perhaps you love her tiny freckles that look like flecks of gold dusted across her nose. Or maybe it's their kissable chubby cheeks.

For me, it's my son's legs and my daughter's heart.

I see the glory of God when I look at my son's legs. When I was 17 weeks pregnant, we went to doctor for our "Boy or Girl?" ultrasound visit. And as the doctor moved the wand back and forth over my growing belly, I saw on the screen a complete leg--femur, bent knee, tibia and fibula. It was so whole and so perfect. My son's entire body was only about 5 inches long in total from head to toe, and he weighed only 5 ounces at that point--Yet there it was. His beautiful, magnificent, glory-covered little leg. He was being knit together inside me--a thought I can hardly fully take in. And so now when I see him run and play soccer and ride his bike, I see those legs and think, "Glory to God."

I love my daughter's heart. It's obviously not something I can see, but sometimes when she hugs me close, I can feel her heart beating. And when I do, I get a glimpse of the glory of God. The sound is like a precious reminder of the way the LORD sustained, and continues to sustain, her life. Her heart beating is what allows us to hold her in our arms and watch her dance and grow and laugh and live. And it's a reminder that the absence of a heartbeat is why we have yet to hold our second son. During our second pregnancy, we had no concerns and took for granted that all would be fine. But a routine ultrasound found no heartbeat. We were devastated. But then came our daughter, our little A.G. With every prenatal appointment, I gratefully drank in the sound of her heartbeat streaming through on the little doppler machine. It was a glorious sound. Truly a GLORY-ous sound. Because even then, our Heavenly Father was fashioning my daughter's heart, strengthening it and enabling it to sustain her life. Glory to God.

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.
Psalm 139:13-17

Father, I love seeing Your glory splashed all over Your creation, but what a gift to see it on my own children. They have been fashioned for the very things of GOD! I'm just amazed at the works of Your hands. I praise You because they are fearfully and wonderfully made, and all I can ask is that his little legs will carry him to do Your work, and that her heart will be full of compassion, burdened for the lost, and consumed with love for You.