His Name Is Josiah...

His name is Josiah. He’s not even a week old yet, and he is already able to post on Remnant’s internet bulletin board. You have to admit, that’s pretty impressive for a 60 hour old baby!

I don’t usually say babies are pretty because, let’s be honest, they usually aren’t. The birth process is brutal, and it takes its toll on a baby at first. Remember the Play-Do Fuzzy Pumper Barber Shop? You place a cylinder of yellow Play-Do in a little tube, then you push a handle and the Play-Do is extruded (that’s a fancy word for crammed) through a little grid and voila, your Play-Do is now like spaghetti! The birth process is a lot like that. The baby is all snug in a nice warm place, floating around, minding his own business, then BANG, he get’s forced out through this little opening into a cold room. People with masks are looking down at him, and some person in scrubs welcomes him to the world by smacking him on the backside! Welcome to the world, little guy! That process has got to take its toll on a kid.

Most babies look a lot like Edward G. Robinson (without the cigar, of course), their faces are all scrunched up, their heads are kind if misshapen, and they have the coloring of a pink grapefruit. Not pretty.

Josiah, on the other hand looks really good. He has hair, his face is really cute, and he doesn’t cry much. At least I haven’t heard him. 

The cool thing about Josiah is that he is just like God made him right now. He has boundless possibilities. He doesn’t understand hate or prejudice. He hasn’t had to do math yet, so he doesn’t know whether he is good at it or not. He hasn’t failed at anything, he’s never been angry with anyone, except maybe the person who smacked his rump upon arrival. He could be a missionary, a President of the United States, a pastor, a teacher, a garbage collector. Josiah could be anything!

Right now he is a blank slate. Josiah’s parents, Debi and Jeremiah, have a huge responsibility to raise him so he can be whatever god wants him to be. They are up to the task. So Josiah is in good hands. The rest of us who surround him and move in and out of his life are important too, He will learn a lot from us by interacting with us. Unfortunately, sometimes he will learn things he shouldn’t learn from the people around him.  When he learns to read, he will read the bumper stickers with curse words that some morons put on their cars because they think it is funny. He will see hate in action, and prejudice, and bad attitudes. I guess when you think about it, God has given all of us the responsibility of Josiah and all of the other babies and children around us as well. 

Think about the children who learn from you daily. They may be the little kid in the shopping cart next to you at the store. They may be your neighbor, your niece, your nephew, your child. What are they learning from you? What are you teaching, not with your words, but with your life? 

As far as Josiah, he is the prettiest baby in the world. Unfortunately for him, that title will be short lived. There is a new most beautiful baby in the world on the horizon, his name is going to be Soren Paul, and he is supposed to show up right around April. He is my first grandbaby, and I am already buying Chargers gear for him!

Excited about one new, and one future, new human… Jerry