Choosing Life

               On this second day of Lent, the first reading for the mass this morning was from Deuteronomy.  Moses says, “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.” Many times when I read this reading, I think about the big life issues. Decisions made by men and women to bring a new life into the world, or to abort the infant. Or end of life issues that ignore the individual’s right to a natural death.

               The homily at mass this morning broadened the context. The priest preached on the decisions we make each day to follow the cross, as preached in today’s gospel, or to go our own way.  He made the point that choosing to follow the cross and die to self is seems like an extreme and foolish way of life in today’s culture.  And by following the cross and making decisions each day in accordance with the precepts of our God, we choose life, over and over again.

               Today’s reading also brought to mind a friend of mine.  She is one of a dozen or so young people who God has brought into my life in the past few years. We worked together for a short time and have kept in touch over the years.  She and her husband have not been able to conceive a baby.  Although they continued to have hope, I knew that they were also going to try to adopt.

               Last spring, I received a Facebook post with the picture of her little boy.  I had lunch with the two of them on Monday and learned the beautiful story of the adoption.  They brought the baby home from the hospital on his third day of life. They learned only 18 hours before they met the baby that they would be parents.  They spent that evening calling family and friends both to notify them and to ask for help.  They shopped to buy the essentials that night.  While they were at the hospital meeting the birth mother and the infant, friends were assembling the crib at their house!

               They had a number of names for the baby, but first asked what the birth mother had named the baby.  It was not a name on the list, but they liked it and decided to use it as his first name.  The baby is now 9 months old and he is beautiful.  He loves music and seemed enchanted when I sang Itsy, Bisty, Spider to him.  (Or he was just putting up with another crazy lady who was singing to him!)

               How tragic it would have been if he had never been born.  And so each day decisions are made to choose life or to choose death.  Those to choose life, such as the decision made by my friend and her husband can bring great joy. Some may include suffering, or at the very least bending ones will to that of the Lord.   When life is chosen, it keeps us on the path that God has designed for us.