A Face of Contentment

A Face of Contentment

  My daughter Sophia, who has liked to keep her fingers busy in a craft ever since she was a small child, made this plaque for me. She made it not long after she became a mother of a round-faced, brown-haired boy. Gazing upon my gift I was first impressed at how readily she picked up this new skill of wood burning. I looked closer and noticed how she added the tiny details almost hidden in her painting of it.

   Then another thought entered in my mind: the contentment on the face of her Madonna. It gave me the impression that Sophia’s design was stemming from that sense of pleasure that comes from a desire fulfilled, in this case a desire to become a mother. She was dabbling in a craft, while her baby napped, and the very outcome of this dabbling gave expression to a young mother’s joy. Can you remember how it felt to hold in your arms a miracle so fresh from God?

   “This looks like you and William,” I told her.

  “Does it? I got the idea for the design from the Victorian logo you use on your books. That’s why the boy is wearing a lace collar.”

  I smiled, that is all. I knew that later, when she was alone in a quiet room nursing her little one, she would privately think more about my connection. Then she would smile, too.

When our children see our faces what do they see reflected there?

"Seems it strange that thou shouldst live forever? Is it less strange that thou shoudst live at all? This is a miracle; and that no more." Young