Thursday, July 6, 2017

a child of the light

Dear Nahum,


The church bells outside the hospital window ring six o'clock this morning. Yesterday morning at this same time Mom (and Dad) were experiencing the agonies of childbirth (in different ways) and don't remember hearing the church bells.

After labouring through the night, Mom started to realize that we probably wouldn't meet you until after daybreak. The midwife was distressed — although not as much as we were — that you were taking so long to meet us, but she told us,
"Your son is waiting. He wants to be born in the light."

Even in her agony, the midwife's words stood out to Mom because of the imagery from Thessalonians:
Nahum, "you are [a child] of the light and of the day; 
[you] don't belong to darkness and night." 

You are a child of the light, Nahum John, born at 7:33am on July 5, 2017 — after the sun rose. A good gift, given to us by the Father of Lights with whom there is no changing, no darkness, and no shadow. Taken back by Him just after the sun rose yesterday morning.

There are no words to accurately describe our joy or our grief, upon meeting and losing you in the same instant. Your short life changed our lives forever; you are our little "child of the light."

Mom and Dad