I’ve heard parents say that their children are “a gift from God”, but never heard an example quite so poignant as I did this weekend. I met a woman who had one child, and she and her husband desperately wanted another. They tried and tried, to no avail. Fertility treatments, still nothing. Finally they decided to give up on adding to their family, and to move on with life. They planned a wonderfully exotic trip to Thailand, complete with side trips to several islands–something they had wanted to do together for years. As the date approached, they became more and more excited. And suddenly, the woman found out she was pregnant. A miracle! A gift from God! But wait, there’s more. Because she was an “older mother”, she was forbidden to travel. The trip had to be canceled. They were crushed. Their departure date came….and left. Life went on. And then the tragic news of a tsunami that hit the exact area that they would have been staying. Had it not been for their (yet unborn) child, they would have been there.
They named their daughter Caris (from the Biblical “Charis”, meaning “grace”). I have no doubt that she will do amazing things in her lifetime.
