Unremarkable

This was the one word written in the comments section of the ultrasound report conducted yesterday to examine our child resting in the womb.  And I am well aware that this word is simply a medical way of saying there was nothing abnormal to remark about in the report.

But seeing this word on the same screen that just showed my child squirm around in the womb made me think.  This is really the key to understanding our culture of death.  Who is it that our world is fine with removing from the earth?  Those they consider unremarkable.

Children in the womb who can perform no function and have no guaranteeable impact on the world.  Elderly folks who may have once been remarkable but no longer have any compelling stories to tell about their current day-to-day lives.  The disabled who sit and maybe yell occasionally but seemingly have nothing of note to offer the world.  The dying who will likely never do anything worthy of a headline again.

And if your world is simply ruled by reason, I guess this makes sense.  These people can be removed with out any immediate impact on the world.  Oh, if a celebrity, author, or a loved one dies, we feel it right away.  But the unremarkable can pass without note.

So is the child in the womb truly unremarkable?  The elderly?  The disabled? The dying?

I could tell you how a child in the womb can change lives long before it exits the womb or the potential it has to change the world.  I could tell you how much I have learned from elderly people who have not done anything exciting in years.  I could tell you that I have never experienced unconditional love like that I have received from disabled strangers who I have visited.  I could tell you that perhaps the most significant change I have witnessed in people comes from interaction with the dying. 

But even if I could not offer one remarkable thing about these people, that would not change the fact that their existence tells us that God finds them very important indeed.  Yes, as God examines each human living, he marks one word at the bottom of the report: “Remarkable.”  Remarkable enough to let his only begotten Son to die that they might live.  May his estimation be ours.