Creation Up Close and Personal

"So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Genesis 1:27

I'm a believer in the bible and have been since I was very little. As a result I have been to many Sunday school classes and vacation bible schools. This means something other than the fact that I have eaten my share of Kool-Aid and stale cookies. It means I have heard certain bible stories over and over again. One of those stories is the creation story. It is the first story in the children's bible you receive for Christmas and it goes something like this: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, then the land and the sea, then the birds and the fish, then the mammals and then for his masterpiece he created a man from the dust and his wife from the man's rib. The older you get the more amazing you realize the story really is.

Then one day you conceive a child. Suddenly everyday is an encounter with the Lord as the Creator. I have come to know God as my friend, father, king and I have pondered him as the Creator but it's never been like this. The science of today allows us to know the developments of gestation on an almost daily basis and since we live in the information age we have access to it at our very own, thoughtfully created fingertips. I get email updates everyday telling me about another thrilling feature or ability being woven into the baby developing in my body. Or I flip through one of my pregnancy books to see what God is working on with my little one that week or day and it is as if I am standing right there with him at the creation of the heavens and the earth. It is equally monumental and mysterious to me.

The God who created the galaxies, oceans, plains, mountains and every grand creature that crawls, flies or swims the surface of the Earth also creates my child. The Almighty that makes all of nature's components work together in a complex but smooth process is finalizing an organization of bodily systems that will support my child's existance his or her whole life.

He looks at each of us as important enough to create as beautifully and wonderfully as he made the stars, the oceans and great heroes that came before us. This pregnancy and the parenthood that waits on the other side is a picture of the love God pours out on me...on all of us.