Every child born changes the entire world

Every child born changes the entire world.

Whether eagerly longed for or dreaded, male or female, impoverished or ultra-wealthy, every child changes the world.

Whether loaded with physical and mental challenges or worry-free healthy, a musical prodigy or profoundly tone-deaf, hair sunny-silky light or wildly curly/kinky dark, skin glorious ebony-rich to albino-like pale, every child changes the world.

Whether left or right-handed, born already reading philosophy or never able to read even one word, oldest or youngest or in a middle position–no matter the characteristics or circumstances, every single child born changes the entire world.

Think about it:  no family dynamic is ever the same after the entry of a child. As families change, so do systems the family impacts. The products purchased change, touching local and far-flung merchants.

More laundry, less neatness; less sleep, more irritation, more doctor’s visits, fewer child-free entertainment options. More child-safe items, fewer breakables. Everything changes.

Some changes are small and barely noticed.  Others become history-recorded legends.

Each adult was at some point a baby. Each of our births also changed the entire world. Some of us have changed the world for the better, others for less than better, but none has been a neutral force.  It cannot be.

Some babies grow up to become murderous tyrants, sucking the life of others into the abyss of their never-satisfied souls; others grow up to freely offer their lives for the good of many.

We live in a world full of passionate love, messy brokenness, anguish, hurt, pain, longing, hope, connection, and separation.

It is from broken, messy people that the Redeemer of the world emerged, whose birth we celebrate this time of the year. It is also from this broken, messy world where the murderers of innocents take place, where leaders arise whose intentions poison the air with evil.

Both choose death. One, Jesus, walked boldly into death so that he might bring others with him into the light of freedom. Others, however, insist on a death that brings innocents down into their own disturbed and destructive darknesses.

A vast gulf separates the two. But both change the world.

Most of us fit somewhere in between those two polarities. We are neither so evil and bent on destruction as the one nor so holy and determined on redemption as the other.  But we all still change the world irrevocably by simply being born and then by making choices.

May we all, in the season of Christmas and the time of new year to come, be those who change the world for the better. Let us spread grace in every way we can and to everyone we meet. Let us together resist the evil and bring forth the good, no matter what it costs us. This is the gift we can give to the world.