Cross Means Yes

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Cross Means Yes.

Those were the panicked words running through my head that cold February night nine months ago, crouched over the E.P.T on the crumpled toilet paper with its faint pink 't'. Cross means yes. A little life. A beating heart. Out of nothing (or at least two very small things!), a person multiplying into existence. Unstoppable. Irreversible. Real. Alive.

I know not what to do about this 'yes.' This someone new. I hardly know how to be an adult, a wife (a title that still sounds intimidating!), let alone a mother?

But the cross meant yes, and there is no turning back. When I named this blog, I thought also about the cross of the gospel, the two planks of wood where our Savior no longer hangs. That empty shape has come to mean much to his followers. It too means yes: yes to new life, yes to a hope that was utterly gone before, yes to an unstoppable, irreversible, multiplying blast through universe history to change everything.

Behold, I am making all things new, he said. And he died on the cross, then rose on the third day and showed his band of brothers and sisters that I am he who has overcome death. Follow me and have this eternal life. The empty cross says that the Savior is not here anymore, but sitting in heaven with his Father, and he will come again. The cross says yes to a new, impossible, beautiful life.

And in a very natural, mundane, graspable way, the cross of the E.P.T said yes, you bear a new life, you and Sam whom Christ chose have created with him a new person. Since that is so, when this new little boy comes (soon now, Lord willing!) may he grow to say yes to the truth, yes to God's kingdom come, and yes to his Lord, Jesus Christ.

That's my prayer for you, little one, as you are so near coming into our world.