When I married a beautiful Southern Belle named Carrie, our
college pastor once shared with me that he sensed God was calling me to “break
the sin cycles” of my family history. His words touched me in a place that had
been barren for years; the place of dreaming, the place of vision, the place of
hope.
And so it was when God gave us our first son, Luke, that I remember a very specific sense of awe
and confirmation that maybe God actually intended to accomplish through me what
I had considered the impossible, the reversal of history and the redemption of a
messy storyline.
When God blessed us with our second son, Andrew, the feeling
of grace and responsibility was overwhelming. Again, God whispered hope and
blessing into our lives and an eternal sense of purpose to raise the next
generation of Woodworths to be a generation of men who loved the Lord, and
stayed with their wives.
Then, for a third time, my wife became pregnant. This one
was not planned, not for this time in life anyway, when work, and children, and
marriage, and graduate school seemed to be pushing in on every side. So it was
that one morning I found myself on a long walk in the woods praying to God for
guidance, and wisdom, and protection for the little one now growing in the womb
of my bride. And as I rested on a nearby log the spirit of God spoke to my own
spirit saying, “it will be a boy, and his name will be Zachary.” Such divine
conversations were far from the norm for me.
I shared the experience with my wife and we both agreed that
in true “better-safe-than-sorry” fashion we should simply call him Zachary if
he is indeed a boy.
We visited the doctor on the day of our scheduled
appointment after my wife had consumed an extra measure of caffeine to ensure
the little bean would move enough to give us a clear view. The ultrasound
technician moved the electronics over her smooth tummy until the screen of
static before us slowly cleared to reveal to us, for the first time, our
child. “It is a boy.”
The words echoed in my mind as my wife and I embraced with
the clarity of God’s redemptive purposes for us, for all of us, for the
magnificent way in which he graciously offered us not just one, or even two
chances, but now even three times as many opportunities to bless the future of
our family name, His family name.
I met each of my sons for the very first time at 20 weeks. And
in that moment I heard their heartbeat for the first time, I watched them suck
their fingers, and caught them responding to the sound of our voices. They had
eyes, noses, feet, legs, arms, lungs and all the potential necessary to utterly
transform the pictures in the family photo album of my mind.
20 weeks. That is when I met them for the first time. And
while I do not wish to politicize this story, their story, I will say that to
suggest that in that moment it was my wife’s “right” to have a “choice” to end
their story is, arguably, one of the greatest injustices that our world has
ever known.
