"we are a world of lottery winners.
for everyone of us here right now, in every begetting,
there were at least 7,999,999 losers.
they don't even know how almost they were."
notes from a tilt-a-whirl | nd wilson
for everyone of us here right now, in every begetting,
there were at least 7,999,999 losers.
they don't even know how almost they were."
notes from a tilt-a-whirl | nd wilson
"You have been given your body. You have been given your ancestors, your natural strengths and your natural weaknesses. The backstory is all in place. You have been drawn, described and placed on a stage unlike any other - the Globe. And you have been given your freedom to act. Your story has already begun. It began when that lucky, eager sperm stood on the winner's platform and listened to its national anthem. One tail flick slower and you would be someone else. You would be named Theresa now and you wouldn't be you." (quote from ND Wilson)
Not one part of our anatomy is a mistake. Not one piece of our growing flesh puzzle came as a surprise to the Creator. Not your brain and how it functions, not your waist and how long it is, not your toes and how fat they are, not your elbow and how it's "double-jointed." We, down to the molecular, cellular level have been planned by God, and after making His plan for us, He specifically tailored us, knitting our body together in another persons body. Synonyms for womb include abyss, emptiness, hollowness, nothingness. From nothingness, He created life. During an abyss, He planned something. "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." (Jeremiah 1:5) "In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." (Psalm 139:16)
Amy Carmichael is an historic hero for her heart, courage, love for and service to the people of India. "Every night before she went to bed, little Amy Carmichael prayed ardently and enthusiastically for God to turn her brown eyes blue as she slept. Like many brown-eyed Irish girls in the 19th century, she adored the typical image of feminine Irish beauty that included blue eyes and white skin. So, she prayed fervently--prayed with a hope that it seems only children can muster--for God to change the part of her that seemed to be designed wrong. She desperately hoped for God's intervention--but it never came. Amy had brown eyes from the day she was born to the day she died." As this famous story goes, it becomes beautifully clear that Amy's brown eyes were intentional. As she grew older and was living out God's plan for her, He opened her spiritual eyes to His purpose of her dark human eyes. "The missionaries she worked with did everything they could to fit into the culture of which they were becoming a part. Amy reflected once that she now understood why she had brown eyes--a blue-eyed missionary would have been an oddity that never could have truly fit in with the people--and she was thankful that God had persisted in God's intricate and elegant design instead of catering to the wishes of a girl who had not yet met her calling." (quote by Joshua Hearne)
Not every brown-eyed girl is called by God to be a missionary in India, but every pair of brown eyes was made because they were precisely what God wanted, what He planned. Surely many brown-eyed girls have wished for blue eyes, and surely most of them never saw a "reason" for their brown eyes like Amy did. But that's okay. Every part of our miraculous, beautiful human machines has a purpose. Short legs, scrawny legs, stiff legs, moles, wrinkles, marks, dimples, plump cheeks, wizened skin, cleft palettes, full lips, hands with two fingers, nail beds, finger prints, cuticles, hand wrinkles, knuckles that crack, curly hair, fast-growing leg hair, hairy backs, crooked teeth, pearly teeth, broad shoulders, slumpy shoulders, hearts with holes, spines with bends, brains with fluid, muscles that are too hard, frames that are big, frames that are small, skin that is dark, voices that are raspy, eyes that never see, ears that hear perfectly, feet that never walk, the milky body of a 20-week old life, the decomposing body of an 102-year old life. Your body is not an accident, your body has not gone by unnoticed. Your body is your costume for this stage, The Globe, and God himself sewed it together. He created it for you. It was not a mistake. You are not a mistake, though you may have been quite the surprise to your parents, God "made [you] in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth." He cares for you. I'm full convinced that this changes everything.