My sweet baby girl Eliana Mary Clay was born at 3:49 AM on October 14th, 2017. Her life began however, exactly 40 weeks earlier on the day I sat with my dear Grandma Betty and sang with her until she slipped peacefully into her last sleep. I’d like to think that Grandma ending her journey the day that Eliana began hers allowed them to meet along the way. I think of her often as I sing to my baby who has yet to mature in all her other senses outside of hearing; not so differently from those on their deathbed who cling to the sound of love in the voices around them to the very end. Interestingly enough Grandma Betty wasn’t the first of my loved ones that I walked with to the finish line. My Grandma Mary passed in a similar fashion; more slowly, but nevertheless with much singing. Eliana was due on her birthday exactly 95 years later. She almost made it too! Promptly starting my extensive labor at 5:00 AM that morning. From conception to arrival my baby has been encircled by the memories of wonderful women who loved me well and by the holiness of song.
Upon reflecting on the pure beauty of new life, my friend Melissa told me, “Perhaps at birth and death is when we are closest to our Creator and therefore closest to perfection”. I believe there is truth to this. That closeness to God at the fragile poles of human life are windows that allow us to glimpse the eternal. In heaven we will experience constant unbroken communion with Christ himself in his full glory. It is fitting then, that in such moments the most appropriate and profound response be worship through music and prayer. George MacDonald said of Heaven that it is, “a place where everything that is not music is silence,” that is, fully rejoicing or fully reflective. Even in her early, developing state, my precious little girl is enamored by voices and music. As her innocent, slate gray eyes widen in curiosity to lovely sounds, I see the fingerprints of God on her beautiful, new soul. Eliana is Hebrew for the phrase “My God answered”. He answers because he listens to his children and is delighted to speak to them in love. He is THE living word and by his voice the world was spoke into existence. The heart of the Gospel is that each human being has been designed to deeply know God. This intimate knowledge is primarily birthed from listening to his voice, speaking to him regularly, and sharing the joy of relationship with those who have yet to taste its sweetness. My baby is too young to comprehend the greatness of the God who loves her, but already her design to be his emanates from her very essence, “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. – Romans 1:20”
Being with my Eliana teaches me about the inherent beauty of each soul. I so often forget the value of people I pass each day. For some reason the glitter of glory that comes from being made in God’s image fades from remembrance as we age. But it is not so in the eyes of Christ. When I look at my child, I feel a small semblance of how fervently he must love each of us. Only when I gaze at my baby do I in a tiny way begin to understand the joy set before him that Jesus felt as he went voluntarily to the cross. As I look back at pregnancy and childbirth, the struggles, heaviness, fear, and anticipation, I find myself understanding Christ in a whole new light. I would have chosen none of the strange and painful things that happened to me the past 10 months had they not been tied to the promise of bringing my child to life. Yet knowing that she was the end goal and now seeing her in my arms, I can truly say that it was for the joy set before me that I endured what I endured; and I would do it all again for her.
Now my sweetheart is a newborn. Alive, beautiful – and awake when she should be asleep. If I will allow it, each day is another day for refinement into Christ’s likeness. Her full dependence on me teaches me how little I have died to myself as Jesus asks. I thought being a camp counselor taught me selflessness, but that was the minor league. It is now literally do or die time. And in my exhaustion I find that no doing of my own strength will ever be enough. It is only by dying; to my desire for control, recognition, comfort, and autonomy that I can ever be made strong enough to live life well. He is faithful. I think for the first season in my life I am beginning to take up my cross as Jesus did for a joy outside and greater than me.
Thank you dear Eliana, for being the instrument that carves me more into the image of our Savior. I cannot wait for you to know him.
Beautifully written Rachel