Restoration Babies

I have been interested lately in the topic of restoration. For example, talk show host Nancy Grace recently gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Avid watchers of her show are familiar with her life story, that she lost her fiance years ago to a violent crime. That event was instrumental in her choice to become a prosecuting attorney. She did not marry and thought she would give her life instead to the pursuit of justice for crime victims--that is, until love intervened in her life again.

Our Bible study group has also been reading about unexpected babies in the Old Testament. Many examples abound where women were barren, and God surprised them with babies. Among those are Sarah, Abraham's wife; Rachel, Jacob's beloved wife; and even Lot's daughters who tricked their dad with drink in order to lie with him and conceive.

My friend Meera also shared with me a similar surprise sent to her brother and sister-in-law. Her brother was born with a congenital eye disease and his now-wife was a widow (a very difficult situation for a woman in India). In their forties or near, they married and thought their chances of having a child were quite improbable. A doctor's x-ray revealed a wonderful surprise: an eight month fetus who would be born shortly thereafter to middle-age parents and grandparents in their old age.

On a personal level, I have to admit also that, when our daughter told us she was gay, one of my first thoughts was that she would never be a mother. I was wrong as well. In the age of fertility clinics, our baby grandson was born in the summer of 2005 and is a delight to the many people who surround him on a daily basis.

Believers, of course, attribute these unexpected babies to God's restoration. I love the idea that God can see into our souls and address our deepest needs.