The beauty of new fingerprints

We had out ultrasound on Thursday evening.  I had a lot of nerves leading into the day, but that afternoon I was overcome with calm and resolve that everything would turn out well.  (Probably not me, probably God that helped to calm me down so I could feel the joy.  Okay, let's just agree that it was Him.  Moving on...).

Before I could really think about it, T and I were walking into the ultrasound room.  The technician was really good at her job.  She was calm, kind, and soothing.  And, there was the baby!  Instantly, on the screen.  He/she was moving around a lot.  My favorite part was the heart.  There's just something so surreal and beautiful to the core to see that little heart, with all four chambers, pumping blood through that little body.

After a tear trickled down and I looked at my husband's entranced loving face, I was surprisingly moved by the hands of that little person.  They haven't touched anything yet, but they already have fingerprints.  The brain has just recently learned how to let that body move and squirm and function, but the fingers already have fingerprints?!  That's the extravagance of the beauty of His world... the extras, the over-the-top details.  Like the colors of sunsets (that's the more celebrated cliche extra beauty of the world).  Or, the birds nests that are revealed, perfectly formed, in the highest branches of the trees when all the leaves fall every Autumn.  Or the orange amber glow of the embers in our fireplace at the end of a cold night.

Or, to imagine the beauty those new hands will create.

Or, the fact that these little hands might look like mine, or my grandma's, or my husband's.  Or my husband's great great grandfather.  We won't even know all the beauty.  There's just too much.  But, here's to our hearty attempt to take it all in...

May you have eyes to see the beauty.  --Meg Tess