A Child is Born

Remember how a couple of months ago I blogged about the pandemic flu billboards all over Athens? Well, Athens Public Health should consider posting pandemic pregnancy billboards around my workplace. Seriously, I think more women at work have had babies or are having babies within the next 40 weeks than not. As an added precaution I'm bringing my own bottled water and I refuse to sit in their office chairs. There's no such thing as "too careful" for a single girl like me.

The newest addition belongs to my friend Angie. Her baby boy entered the world this past Thursday. I haven't gotten to meet him yet (all in the name of RSV prevention of course...I'm pretty sure it's not kosher to show up in the hospital room of a newborn bringing a hacking cough and sneezes) but I can tell by the pictures that he's super sweet and cute. And I'm sure he's the toughest kid on the block already given that he spent his first couple of days of life at a hospital in Athens wearing a Tennessee stocking hat!

Since Baby M was born last week, I started thinking a lot about how just what miracles babies are. No worries, I'm not going to go all "NOVA Special - Miracle of Life" on you here. There are some things that are better left off of my blog and on public television. No, what is so fascinating to me in terms of newborns is that humans are the most complex and sophisticated (some of us more than others) life form there is. Yet when we enter this world, we are the most helpless. Most baby foals stand the same day they are born; they begin to gallop on day two. Babies begin to walk around day 365. Baby birds "fly the nest" at a very young age. I know some "baby birds" in their mid-twenties who still haven't "flown the nest", so to speak. Humans cannot do a single thing for themselves when we are born. We must depend solely upon our parents or caregivers to feed us, change us, nurture us, love us, etc. Coincidence? I really don't think so.

Blame it on my continuous quest for control over my life, or blame it on the fact that I haven't really acknowledged God all that much lately, but He has really opened my eyes to a few things in the past few days. In less than 2 weeks I will be 30 years old. Sure, I'm pretty independent and I have the basics down (thanks to my mama who made me start doing my own laundry at the ripe old age of 9), but there are some things in life in which I am completely helpless. I'm learning (again) that I must rely solely on God to shape me into the person I am to meant to be. I must rely on Him instead of myself in terms of plans for my life (ugh...maybe by the time I'm 60, I'll finally get this). After all, I am His child.