Just Because

I’m trying to read the Bible in its entirety. Even the uncomfortable parts. Even the “OMG. No He didn’t!!” parts.

However, I am having a hard time getting past the first chapter. Genesis 1:1 -2:1 It’s the first Creation story presented in the Bible. My (soon to be) spiritual director suggested that I read this and think about how God might have felt as God “created” me.

I remember how I felt when I realized my son had been conceived. After the initial, “No, No, No, NO!” which had more to do with how much my life was going to change, I remember a sense of wonder. I remember how much I wanted a child and then how much I wanted this child. As if this child been chosen for me. As if this was meant to be, that no matter what this child was wonderful. I thought of the verse from Jeremiah chapter 1,”Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…” (v. 5a) or Psalm 139, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

And it stuns me that God or anyone would feel that way about me. We all know the sense of joy and wonder that can come with the birth of child. Can you imagine that someone (maybe many someones) felt that way about our births? Those feelings of joy and happiness and delight, because we were created, formed and brought forth.

As weary as I am these days, it’s a hard thing for me to imagine. So I read and re-read the “God saw that it was good…” creation story and I try to imagine being one of those things that God created and God being filled with a sense of wonder and delight and looking down on me and saying, “I have created Laura and she is good.”