It’s not what you think.
Sometimes God provides very interesting and even funny reminders of his nearness to us. The birth of our 3rd little girl, Zoe Star, is one such example. She turned 2 yesterday and I figured this would be a good time to reset this story.
Prior to Zoe my wife and I had experienced several miscarriages (I wrote about it here). This was an extremely tough time. We had wanted another child but the babies were not healthy. Then we found out that Christie was pregnant, and that the pregnancy looked really good.
For some reason everyone thought she was a girl. We had several first names in the hopper so we called her by her agreed upon middle name, “Star”. So this baby, throughout the pregnancy, was “Baby Star”.
Fast forward a bit to post delivery. As you might imagine it is quite emotional. We are praising God for this new little baby. We are thanking him for hearing our prayers, comforting us amid the pain of miscarriage, and being overjoyed at this new little, healthy baby girl.
Then we noticed that Baby Star had something on her head. Right smack-dab between her eyes, on her forehead was this redish mark that became very visible when she cried. The more we looked at it the more the object became clear: it was a five-point star! We were shocked. We laughed and marveled. The Drs said that it was a birth mark that would probably become less visible with time but would always have the potential to show up, especially when she got upset (what a blessing to her future husband to not have to ask, “Honey, are you upset?” He just has to look for the Star and he’ll know.)
And so it was. We sat in this hospital room and stared at little “Baby Star” and her birthmark. It was as if she was holding up a billboard for the goodness, kindness, love and closeness of God. He had so comforted us in the trial and blessed us with this new baby, and now in his (humorous?) providence he has given us a baby with a little birthmark in the shape of her already decided upon name!?
This was utterly amazing. The nurses and doctors from later shifts thought we named the baby after the birthmark. However, as we told them the story they were shocked, and even wierded out a bit. Soon we had nurses and other folks coming in to see the Star. We bragged and rejoiced in the goodness and closeness of our God through Christ.
We decided on her first name shortly thereafter. Zoe (Greek for life) is fitting for us after the miscarriages. Now Zoe is two years old. We don’t see the star as often, but we still see it. We remember again of how God has so richly blessed us and even amazed us with this little tattoo of his goodness and care to us.
