A Good and Perfect Gift
What happens to you when, a few minutes after delivering your baby, you are told there is something wrong? Yesterday I heard Amy Julia Becker speak. She had lived that scenario.
Her husband, who had spoken with the doctor, came back into her hospital room, his eyes glazed with tears. “They say our baby may have Down’s Syndrome,” he said.
Penny did indeed have Down’s Syndrome, and Amy Julia Becker went on to write a book about the experience of mothering this child, A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations, and a Little Girl Named Penny.
At first, she could only compare Penny to all her friends’ children. What could they do? And what could Penny do? When all the other kids could walk, could read, could score a soccer goal, Penny could not. As long as she asked only what Penny could do, Penny would always come up short.
Finally, Becker confessed yesterday in her moving presentation, “I began to ask not what my daughter could do, but who she was.”
Identity. Not achievement. Penny was a loving, open-hearted child of God. She had ultimate value and worth because she was a daughter of God, who loved Penny perfectly.
Becker did not say anything I didn’t already “know,” but somehow it sunk in yesterday. Maybe it was because Becker was clear that her daughter’s identity was in God. Penny was precious not just because her mother and father loved her—they did, but as Becker reminded us, all human loves are partial and imperfect. Our identity lies ultimately in God, she reminded us. That means, at our core we are always precious in God’s sight. Perfect as-is. We don’t have to do anything to be worthy.
That’s a tough sell in this world, though. “Sure, my identity is in God,” Becker said, “but now I have to go get that ‘A’, I have to win the prize, I have to make partner.” It takes a lifetime to let the truth of our identity sink in.
It seems we must spend the first half of life rejecting our real identity—the one simply given to us by our Creator—and work like crazy to create a false identity, one manufactured out of all our achievements. The things we can do.
Then at some point the false identity becomes too much to bear. We realize it’s pitiful and futile and joyless to live behind that mask a day longer. For Becker, that moment came when they placed into her arms a little girl who broke her heart because she was never, ever going to be able to do enough. But that heart break broke her through, into the truth, not only about Penny but about herself.
What a beautiful way to learn about ourselves through the lessons of our children. It is difficult to accept that we are imperfect and even more difficult to not be the sum of our accomplishments but are worthy of God’s love no matter what we do. Even harder to love others only because God loves them. Thank you for a simple, beautiful lesson.
There is no doubt that the best way to live, the best way to respond to the Pennys of this world, is with an act of radical acceptance: to choose to believe that they are perfect, and that all the Amys are perfect, and that a Perfect One presides over all.
And yet Acceptance still feels like a drug to me. However, I know from experience that if I don’t take this drug I end up taking others, like the distraction pill or the alcohol pill or the food pill, or one of the numberless other substance and process pills.
Every day a Penny is born. Every day a bomb goes off, many Pennys, many bombs. Since there is no way to halt this juggernaut, I have, it seems, just two analgesic options: take one Acceptance daily, or dose up on a half-dozen other opiates that only make me sicker and sadder.
Are these the only two options? If so, who can argue with what Amy prescribes?
What I experienced in Amy was not that she ‘chose to believe’ that her daughter was perfect, but that she actually came to experience Penny as such. Well, actualy, it’s probably both: You choose to believe what seems impossible, and then–the mystery is–the impossible overtakes you, and it’s real and it’s not really you ‘choosing’ it anymore, but it that chooses you. I just spoke to a man this morning, who was reiterating that love was a “choice.” And it is–at least at the start (when we choose to love something or someone in spite of the fact that we don’t ‘feel’ it), but then at some point we start to experience and feel love or compassion–and we realize that we’ve been overtaken by love and we’re actually surprised at what we’re experiencing. And we know it’s from beyond outselves. But–the paradox is–you have to start by choosing it….
David, your piece on Penny and family and then the aweful Boston bombing at the marathon is so hard to take.One never wants to give up or give in but it is hard, very hard and we all need support from God and each other I just looked out my office window and it is beautiful out there A bit of counter balance! Blessings clark
So true. It’s very hard. And yes, yes, we all need support from God and each other.
Children and Adults with Down Syndrome are so very easy to LOVE, because they Love everyone. They are special and a joy. Ginny