Baby Dedications

Police arrested a 24-year-old woman from South Carolina on Tuesday, February 8, 2011, and charged her in connection with the discovery of her newborn son in the toilet of the BI-LO Center in Greenville, S.C., according to news sources.

The woman, who already has a 4-year-old child, told police she couldn’t recall what happened after she went into the arena bathroom when she attended a circus on Friday, Feb. 4.

A custodian discovered the infant around 11:30 p.m. The child was only a few hours old; he was suffering from hypothermia and weighed around six pounds. He was rushed to the hospital and was listed in critical condition on Tuesday, Feb. 8. The mother could face 30 years in prison if convicted on one count of felony child abuse and one count of unlawful neglect toward a child.

I heard the news about that baby only days after witnessing a Sunday morning “baby dedication service” at the church my wife and I attend in Southern Pines, N.C. I thought about the contrast in images: 10 held-and-cuddled children standing on a church stage on a Sunday morning versus one newborn shivering while lying in water held by a receptacle manufactured for the disposal of human waste.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776 in the United States Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….” Though we all may be in theory “created equal,” some people don’t seem to be born that way.

I remember moving years ago with my wife and our first daughter, a toddler at that time. A man, who appeared to be 20 years older than I and a bit nervous or hyperactive, knocked on the door of our newly purchased home.

“Hello, I’m your neighbor from up the street,” the man said. He told me his name and, after a few more words, said, “I was left in a basket on the doorstep of the Salvation Army when I was a baby.”

I thought it odd that he so quickly offered that information to a stranger. He concluded his welcome by saying, “This is a good neighborhood – don’t nobody bother nobody.”

I wondered how knowing he was left as an infant at the Salvation Army affected the man who stood on our doorstep. Did he spill out the circumstances of his beginnings to defuse any rejection he potentially might feel if his new neighbors heard about his start in life? Did he fear being a “bother” to anyone?

The Prophet Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations’” (Jeremiah 1:5 NIV).

You may have heard that verse used to comfort people feeling insecure about their self-worth. Have you wondered if “that word” was for Jeremiah but not for you? There seem to be many babies born “without a chance in the world.”

And yet, Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29 NIV).

When parents brought youngsters to Jesus so he could “place his hands on them,” his disciples rebuked the parents. “But Jesus called the children to him and said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these’” (Luke 18:15-16 NIV).

You don’t have to be “a Jeremiah” to be important to the Heavenly Father.

At the baby dedication service I mentioned, my wife and I saw our pastor pray for 10 children. An array of young parents stood side-by-side across our church platform. The way those parents held their children and the fact they brought them to be dedicated to the Lord seemed to indicate the value they placed on their little ones.

Every child is important to God, whether that child is red or yellow or black or white, whether he was born in a castle or a shack – or whether he was birthed and left lying in a toilet bowl.