My Best Four Inventions

We were all sitting down to breakfast when my nine-year-old asked me if I had invented her baby sister.

“Invented? No, I may have given birth to you all but God is the one who invented you. I couldn’t have invented any of you if I had tried!”

“Hmmm…” they all mulled over my statement.

“If I had wanted to invent you I would have had to ask for my firstborn to be this incredibly sensitive, intelligent, athletic girl with brown eyes and wavy brown hair, who really loves bunnies…”

(Here my eleven-year-old’s eyes lit up.)

“And for my second child to be an intuitive, creative, insightful, and artistic girl with green eyes and straight brown hair, who really loves elephants. . .”

(Giggles from my nine-year-old.)

“And for my third child to be a silly, smart, easy-going, boy with hazel blue eyes and brown hair, who never stops playing baseball. . .”

(My seven-year-old looks out the window thinking about going out to play some more ball.)

“And my fourth child to be a fun-loving, musical, laughing girl with brown eyes and brown hair, who loves berries and standing up in her high chair. . .”

(She is standing as I pronounce the words; I fetch her out of her high chair.)

“No, I could never have asked for all of these qualities because only God knew what to give me. He knows us better than ourselves.”

They all just sat there thinking about that for a few minutes.

It is amazing how our children see us as their own inventors. It makes me feel humbled to be given such credit and I am happy to be able to set them straight and give credit where it is due. But it is also wonderful for our children to know that if we had been given a choice as to what qualities they would have been given, we would not have changed a thing.

“Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.”
Psalms 127:3

Painting: Margot in Blue, Mary Cassatt,
1902, Pastel on heavy paper with light canvas back; The Walters Art Gallery at Baltimore, MD