Living Dolls

The petite doll fit nicely into my hand.  I contemplated it, wondering why I still had the thing.  What is it about stuff that grabs hold of us so?  A little bit of wood had been cut, shaped, sanded and painted with a face and suddenly a dead plant had taken on personality and demanded to be clothed.  If you pick up a stick in the woods and carry it around for a while, it doesn't cost a lot of sentimental currency to cast it away.  But just let your hands invest in it with time and tools, with thought and purpose, and voila, a worthless stick becomes something with value.  Add imagination into the mix, and your stick has a name and you may animate her for your entertainment, giving her words, movement and a story.  But no amount of imagination will make her real or put thoughts into her head.  She has no life to live, no story to tell apart from the one I tell for her.  Still, I could not cast her away.  Why not? It's a stick, for goodness sake!   No matter, she won't be thrown out on my watch.

My thoughts turned to God.  He took a bit of inanimate dirt and clay, fashioned it to reflect Himself, gave it a face, a soul and life.  The dry bones assembled and walked.  He bestowed upon His creation the ability to think and talk.  The very minute the dirt man was animated, he began to have a story.  God imparted value, a living, eternal value to that bit of dirt.  He gave him a name, a beautiful garden in which to live, a purpose, and then He completed the whole package by designing and animating another one to do the work of cultivating and taking dominion with him.  This one had a different pronoun: she.  They fit together perfectly.  He set down these two living dolls in the house He had made for them and gave them one rule, only one boundary.  We all know what happened after that.  "You had one job!"  This business of creation is apparently a risky one. 

And then I thought about having children.  Two little cells collide and voila!  God lets us participate in this risky beautiful business of creation.  The very minute those two cells collide to form one new life, it has a story and a purpose.  He or she has living, eternal value, a face and a soul.  This is no silly painted stick, people.  It's a miracle!  Granted, it's a miracle that will require a lot of time and attention, not to mention a great deal of self-sacrifice, but once begun, the miracle has a story to live.  And we are casting away millions of these stories, these little miracles, on our watch.  Something that is whole is being ripped apart; something living is being killed.  And we all know it. 

I will tell you a secret: I, too, have done this terrible thing.  I cast away someone eternal as if it were a stick I picked up in the woods.  I snuffed out a story on the very first page.  My imagination was small, my fears were large, the lies were appealing, and the crime seemed victimless.

I put the doll back down, a very poor substitute for the real thing.  But no matter, she won't be thrown out on my watch.

For you formed my inward parts;

You knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

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 139:13-16