For years I had dreamed of going to Israel on a semester abroad and I had finally made it. It was my first day to do my own sight seeing in Jerusalem and my friends and I chose to take a look at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. With a guide by our side we entered the cathedral. I was first struck by how large and cold it was. Then I noticed the lines of people walking past different spots. I was curious about what they were doing. As I drew closer I could see them kneeling, rubbing their hands, rosaries and scarves over certain stones and then bending to kiss them. I couldn’t understand their desire to kiss stones that thousands of hands had rubbed and thousands of mouths had kissed. They must have felt a reverence and awe that I didn’t feel and wanted to show it with these signs of respect.
I still don’t understand the desire to kiss a stone, but I do understand the desire to kiss something that fills me with awe, something holy. Every time I pick up my new baby girl I can’t help but kiss her sweet cheeks and there is nothing more holy and pure than a newborn baby.
Our new Emma is a little angel here on earth. She brings with her a bit of heaven. It always amazes me how close heaven feels when there is a new baby in the house. The veil seems so thin. It is almost as if I can reach out and brush it away to see beyond.
Like a ministering angel our little one brings us sweet messages. She doesn’t share them in her words, but her very presence elicits these messages to our minds. She brings a message of hope, a message of love and a message of eternal perspective. These are certainly the messages we need most in a tumultuous world.
Every baby that is born is message of hope to the world. These new little lives are full of unfathomable potential. No matter how dark and dismal things may seem a baby is a ray of light, a chance to choose a new way. I feel this personally with each new child. I can begin again as a mother. I have another chance to be the kind of person I long to be. In fact in the presence of this holy creature I want to live more purely myself. I never want her to hear an angry or ugly word. I want her to experience only beauty and love in our home. Her presence changes what I want to read, watch and listen to, only the very best around this little angel.
Many writers and philosophers have talked about a child’s message of hope to the world. E. T. Sullivan wrote: “When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn’t stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home out of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother’s heart, and she puts it into the baby’s mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies.” (The Treasure Chest, p. 53.)
So in this time of economic turmoil, political upheaval, and war the thing that has the greatest power of hope are the babies being born. The birth of new babies may not be newsworthy, but “the greatest forces in the world are babies.” A force such as this must be protected and nurtured at all costs. Like Elder Nelson said recently at the World Congress of Families V, “If there is any hope for the future of nations, that hope resides in the family. Our children are our wealth; our children are our strength; our children are indeed our future!”
Angel babies also bring a message of love to us. They don’t express love to us, but they seem to embody it. When a new baby comes to our home there is an outpouring of love unlike any other time. My children express love and adoration for their little sister and it seems to spill over to each other too. There is less fighting and more kindness. A feeling of love seems to permeate our home, simply because a new little spirit entered it.
A new perspective, an eternal perspective, enters our hearts too. Things that seemed so important before fall to the side. Nothing is as important as this child and our family. I hold my Emma and wonder who she is, what great things she will do and what gift and mission she has to perform in this life. I have no doubt that she is of great worth; no doubt that she has a gift to give. I so easily forget this as my children grow. I see the messes, the tantrums, and the imperfections and I forget that as a baby I knew they were great. I wondered how such majestic spirits could fit in such little bodies. I was in awe of who they were. When a baby enters our home I remember the greatness of each one again.
At the birth of a child it is as if I step off a train and watch it continue on without me. It flies past, but I remain on the platform for a time letting it fly by. It is a time of reflection about what really matters in life. A time to focus on the little people I have chosen to mother. I forgo obligations to the outside world and live just for our family. It doesn’t go on forever. Of course there comes a time when I must get back on the train and join the rush of the world. There is much yet to do.
Only this time as I get back on that busy train I hope I will carry a little bit of this peaceful period with me. I may never have another child to remind me of what is truly important so I must remember on my own. Perhaps each day as I kiss my children’s cheeks I will remember that as God’s children they are holy and full of divine potential.
