The Beauty of Life

This coming spring I will be marrying the woman of my dreams. Not only is she beautiful and smart, but she is the most faithful person I have ever met. In preparing to receive the beautiful sacrament of marriage there are a lot of things you have to discuss. I mean when you get married it is for life and there are certain things that should be discussed such as children, financials, where you're going to live, and how to be there for each other. Recently the big topic has been children. As a youth minister I work a crazy schedule and a little more than a year after we get married I plan on going to World Youth Day. Questions like who will stay home? How many kids do we want? The other day as Megan and I talked about this I just smiled.  I had to be the luckiest man in the world to have found a woman who is so open to life and understands the beauty of the gift that God gave her.  She sees life as gift at conception.

When I think about the conception and birth of a child I think of the Holy Family. If you think about it God could have easily just put Jesus on this earth without having Mary give birth to Him. God came to Mary for a reason not only because she was completely pure, but it was necessary for her to bear Jesus in her womb. It was necessary for Jesus to be born from her womb.  At the moment of birth I can only imagine the joy that was brought down into Mary seeing her child there.  Through this image it shows us the beauty of woman and the beauty of child birth. 

Today, a child seems to be a burden more than a gift. A child is seen as the consequences of the mistake someone made with their boyfriend or a money guzzler that people cannot afford.  When we look at a life in this way they are no longer a person. They are seen as something we can toss away, but they are way beyond that. They are gift not only to you, but to this world. Even after birth they should not to be forgotten or left. They are a life that we are called to care for until they can care for themselves. Joseph did not abandon Mary and Jesus after Jesus was born. He cared for that life until Jesus could care for himself. He was Jesus' earthly father and guardian. 

In a lot of ways I sit in envy of Megan. She gets the gift of bearing a child for the first nine months of his or her life. For those nine months she is the one to nurture and care for the child not me. Yes I do understand that a man is necessary for the conception of a child and a man has a duty to care for his spouse because those nine months are hard. I just find a beauty in the gift of a child being born. For me though I am lucky that my future wife knows the importance of life at conception. She understands that the gift given to her is necessary to continue life. Life is given to each individual from conception to death where we will enter eternal life with God our Father.