The Weight of Good

Today: the day we've been waiting for. For 3+ years in one way, for 12 years in another way... for what has seemed to us a very, very, very long time. Today, in a court hearing to finalize Eva's adoption, legally conveyed on Eva were all rights and benefits of a daughter born to us. And on us, all the responsibilities of a birth parent.

Of course, we needed no court to tell us she is our daughter, or we her parents; our hearts tell us these things. But there is a beautiful finality in having this good, right, God-ordained relationship recognized also by the laws and government of our land.

There is a certain weight to the best gifts God gives us. Like holding a piece of jewelry that is truly gold - or a vase that is truly crystal. You know that it represents something true and valuable. In its earthly endurance, it hints at something of eternity; something that is truly lasting. All of us have received such gifts, perhaps in different measures.

What astounds me is the ordinariness of the days in which these gifts pass into our hands. Today is just a Tuesday. Just another 24 hour period in temporary earthly lives that could maybe last 70 years or so. But gifts like these spark the mundane like sunlight on a breeze-swept lake. What an amazing paradox God has created - that things which speak of eternity enter in so naturally here, bringing joy and hope to a temporary world. Still, the gift of this child: only a glimpse of the weight of His greatest Gift.

Jesus: the weightiest gift of eternity bestowed on those who, in body, are perishing. And the day of His birth - was it an ordinary Tuesday? - another 24 hour period. But how long, how long, had the world awaited His coming. And how long we wait still - for the fulfillment of that coming. It makes me look harder, watch more intently. Eternity will reach again into this dying place. (Actually, He dwells here among us even now - God in our place). May all of us be ready and reaching back. Come, Lord Jesus.