He was sleeping.  As I recall, I haven’t watched him fall asleep before as I am always the first to sleep.  I have this innate ability and special power to fall asleep as soon as my cheeks hit the soft pillow.  Never knew it was an amazing boon and a blessing until I started hearing folks struggling with this natural phenomenon of rest for the human body. Even God rested after flinging the entire Universe into existence the most important of which was His final day grand finale creation.  Man!  We gaze at the beautiful starry night, have our jaws drop viewing  a gorgeous full moon and get energized by the early morning sunrise but when God saw them He only said it was “good”. Only after making Man on the last day looking at all His creations He said, “Very good”.

As I noticed his tall six foot figure crouched into a foetal position I noticed he was no longer my baby boy but a little man now! Dark haired, long arms and muscular legs, a light mustache and a grub, a calm face with not a worry in the world  with a secure confidence that he was safe in his home with mama!  Those tiny little fingers that used to grasp my hands were no longer tiny.  I remember going for my first check up with the gynaecologist whom I worked with, who ordered my first ultrasound at 7 weeks of gestation.  I was not expecting it that visit but then I heard his heart beat for the first time.  I had a live human being inside of me.  My body was his first home and we would hang out together 24/7 for the next few months.  I was thrilled by the idea!

Few days later I was seated behind his father on a motor bike headed to a fish farm in the suburbs.  It was supposed to be a fun trip as the farm was owned by one of his friends. On the way as I peaked above his shoulders onto the road ahead, I saw  that the road was a little wet with all the water  spilled from the vehicles that transported water to the different parts of town.  I realized that it was a water filling station. As we took a winding turn, in a split second I found the bike seat beneath me vanish as the bike slid in an instant as it was not  water on the roads as I had thought but oil spillage from one of the vehicles.  My then husband and his bike slid towards the median of the road and I dropped straight down in seated position from the motor cycle, pregnant! We were just happily laughing and talking a moment ago!    His father got up and came running to me to see if I was okay. Anyone in my position with the velocity that I fell would have lost the foetus but neither me nor my little one were even scratched by the accident.   God had a shield of protection around us that day. I realized at that moment that this child was special and he was set apart by the Creator to fulfill His unique purpose for which he was created.

I remember the first flutter in my stomach as I was coming out to the parking lot from my clinic. Someone moving inside of me! Wonderful feeling.  As days went by he started growing and filling up a vacuum inside of me that I didn’t even know existed.  Sometime when I see a knob of projection on my belly as he is happily kicking and playing inside of me, I would hold him quickly  but gently before he takes the next move and wonder if it is his feet or hand that was within my palm.  As we took our final ultrasound before delivery I saw a wave of doubt cross the face of the sonologist’s face. Soon found out that my little one had swollen feet.  Worried I came back home and shared it with my mother in law who remembered that her eldest son also had such a swelling on one feet that gradually disappeared over time.  I still wondered how it would look when he came out.  He did come out in a special way (that’s a chapter in itself)  just a few days before Christmas I was holding the most precious gift I have ever received in life – from the Creator himself specially crafted with twinkling eyes in that white fluffy sweater with a blue lining. He gazed at me and me at him that first day in my arms for the longest moment of my life,  as I heard some melodious singing in the background coming from somewhere  below the nursing home – probably from a church choir nearby practicing for Christmas service.  I called him “My pottalam from God” which means in my language means “a package from God”. ‘Pottalam’ was his nickname for a long time to come.

Many who visited me  and my newborn during the first weeks after delivery would only enquire about his feet which was sort of a bluish skin colored swelling on the dorsum of his feet, not even noticing how tall and handsome he was.  As a new mom my heart would sink everytime anyone enquired about his feet. We had so many consultations that just said nothing was wrong except it was mere extra soft tissue in the region.   As he grew the swelling started becoming more skin colored so it was not looking so different from the rest of the body.  I always had to buy him bigger shoes than his actual feet size to fit in the swelling.  It hurt a bit everytime I visited a shoe shop, I should confess. It did not hamper him from walking or running or doing anything a normal fellow can do.  I was grateful for that.  I wondered how he would accept this when he grows up and goes to school and would have to take to take off his shoes for some reason.  What would his peers say? Would they tease him? Would he develop an inferiority complex? One day he asked me that dreaded question I never wanted to hear “Mommy why is my feet swollen?”   I just smiled and said “God made you that way.  It is nothing to worry about – it will go away as you keep wearing shoes and as you grow up “.  I was secretly hoping what my mother- in law said about his uncle would come true one day.  Years rolled by and he was almost completing his elementary school now.  We had put this behind us and his feet didn’t bother him nor me anymore as he was as normal as can be and had no more conversations about the swelling as we got used to seeing it that way.

One fine day, I was seated across from him on a sofa as he was removing his shoes after a day in school in 5th grade probably.   I noticed on  that day that his feet was almost looking flat on the dorsum, almost normal and I shouted to him excitedly “Hey buddy! Look at your feet……..the swelling is all gone.   It just looks like everybody else’s”.  Without skipping a beat he sighed and said “Ohhhhhhh! Really? I thought that’s what made me special”.  His words gripped my heart.  My pottalam’s  perspective was so different than mine at the way God made him.

Reflecting on what he said, we are all very very special to God, each unique in our special way, specifically designed with different set of finger prints because He wants to show us He is God.  As an Anatomy teacher it fascinated me to study embryology and how the foetus developed over a period of 40 weeks within the womb of the mother.  From a union of 2 cells ( a sperm and an ovum) into one single cell just imagine this complex human being formed. Actually it is unimaginable!  We should have been just blobs of cells that multiplied and emerged from the womb.  It takes finesse to make us who we are.  The limbs develop as limb buds and the hand is one solid mass with a web like the duck’s  feet.  As we grow inside the womb these intervening cells between our fingers and toes just decide to die by a process of ‘apoptosis’ and we get these beautiful long fingers and toes and perfect little spacing between them all!

The foetus’s lungs also grows from lung buds and fills the whole thoracic cavity but is of no use for oxygenating the foetus till that ordained time when he/she emerges on the outside and gives that loud cry when the first breath oxygenates his /her  tiny little body and fills the lungs with air. He breathed His life into us.   Everytime I buy a gift for a friend I get one for myself and eventually I have a hard time picking which one to give her and which one to keep for myself, though I love her very much.  As human as I am, I pick the best for myself.  But our Lord and Creator made man in His own image. His own image! That’s how much He loved us.  He has our name inscribed on the palm of His hand.  He’s got us.  The Creator of the Universe has got us in His hand and He never rests or slumbers but watches over us.   He says “I will never leave you nor forsake you” till the end of times.  He has numbered the hair on my head.  He knows me in and out .  He designed me and my son…..I should have trusted Him and thanked Him for making me a perfect little son instead of focusing on the one thing that was not normal according to me.  What is normal anyway? Are we, humans, the ones who should define that word or should it rightfully be the Creator himself?!

He is Potter and we are the clay.   The potter can design each one of us into any shape He wants. Can the clay tell the potter how he should make us?  He can make us  tall or short, big or small , dark or fair, perfect or crippled, naturally smart or just plain dumb, pretty or not but He has made us all specifically like that for His purpose to be fulfilled on this earth.  I can write but I can’t sing, and that’s okay!   I didnt imagine I would write a book or a blog but almost a decade back the seed was sowed by a Grey Hound bus co-traveller. She listened to my stories the whole journey from Little Rock to Atlanta over several hours and said I should write it as a book as she hopped off at her final destination.  Another student of mine came along several years after from Algeria to remind me that I should write again.  The seed that was sown on the Grey hound bus took root this time and you are reading one of God’s purposes in my life now!

Accepting who we are is the first battle to overcome.  Figuring out what you are good at, what your heart syncs with and makes your entire being come alive takes time.  Our Creator is so good in that He just  didn’t make a bunch of gumballs and dropped them on the surface of the earth to roll around.  He knew you from the time the universe was created before you were formed in your mother’s womb.  He designed you on purpose.  He fearfully and wonderfully made you.  As you roam purposelessly on this earth, He will send messengers to remind you of your purpose.  He will speak to you through strangers, on the television/radio channels, through books, through His word, through dreams and visions and more importantly through that still small voice within you.   If you will only  stop running your own race and listen ………..and obey……and take a step of faith  you will see doors fling open in front of you, help coming from across the Universe in the most unexpected ways and you will find yourself in perfect harmony with your Creator.  That’s a rhythm that your entire being will resonate to.  There is joy and perfect tranquility when you are on the path that He has designed for you to walk.  The best part of the journey however is the constant awareness of His presence in you and with you, every step of the way!

Psalm 139:14 says that God made all the delicate, inner parts of my body. He knit me together within my mother’s womb. I was made wonderfully complex.