Grow, grow!

Even if you no longer go to Sunday School, you know how the old Sunday School song goes, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white..." And I'm guessing youre finishing the rest in your head right now.

This week I began a three month rotation through the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). This is the last of four rotations for my program. I began in Behavioral Health (the psych ward), then went to Hospice, Oncology (cancer patients), and now......babies! Not just any babies, but tiny, struggling, innocent, fighting for their life babies. Babies born prematurely or with birth defects and handicaps. For the critical ones, literally each breath can be a fight for life.

The NICU is closed to most people in the hospital; special access is required on our name badge just to open the door. Upon entering, it's like opening the door to an entirely different place. It's dark to help the babies' brains develop, and quiet so as not to harm any growing ear canals and such. We always squit our hands with sanitizer before entering any patient room, but to obtain access to this cradle of care, a solid two-minute long hand scrub down is mandatory.

The patients here are more than adorable. They're cute, precious, goofy-grin, gitty on the inside, wonderful little bundles of life that tap some of the innermost parts that make me human. Just by looking at them I'm on their side, I'm rooting for them. Though I can't just pick them up, I'm holding them with my eyes, with my heart, and I'm reminded of what Barbara Brown Taylor wrote in a book I'm reading, "To hold a sleeping child in your arms can teach you more about the meaning of life than any ten books on the subject."

The Talmud is a central text in the Jewish tradition in the form of rabbinic discussion pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history. The Christian Old Testament is also called the Tanakh and is a Jewish sacred book along with the Talmud.

The Talmud talks about God's love for and attention to all people and things within creation. God loves all of creation. John 3:16 begins, "For God so loved the world." In fact, according to the Talmud every blade of grass has its own angel bending over it whispering, "Grow, grow."

I love this image. Angels cheering on grass as it strives and struggles to be what it was made to be. As I was floating through the NICU today I found myself cheering for each baby by which I stood. On the outside I was smiling. On the inside I was bending over each baby whispering, "Grow, grow."

They are precious! And if my heart and love for these babies feels so strongly inside me, I love the idea that God loves and cheers for these dear little ones even more.

I have a sense that if I listen hard enough I'll be able to hear God chanting along with me. And something tells me God is chanting the same thing to me, and to you.