...and triplets make thirteen!

 

Did you read about the 32 year old Dinka woman from southern Sudan, reported by the BBC?  Already a mother of two boys and a girl, she became pregnant again and thought she carried three babies.

 

          Her mother didn’t believe it and the midwife said it was twins that were in the breech position.  So she was flown to a hospital in northern Kenya.

 

          The woman herself was right.  She gave birth to three healthy babies.  Delivering them was less painful than the birth of my first child, she said! They were the first triplets in her clan.   

 

          Her husband did not know about the triplets until they all reached home. He is an old man, a farmer, with 11 wives and 13 children.  The triplets’ mother is wife number 11.

 

The wonder of birth is a delight we may be privileged to know directly; though we may share the delight of other peoples’ experience.

Don’t you sense real pleasure for that Dinka mother and her husband?

 

The Apostle Peter knew the delight of walking with Jesus.

For three years he was Jesus’ disciple; he saw Him die on the cross;

he met with Him after His resurrection – then years later he wrote -     

 

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him;

and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him

and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

1 Peter 1⁸

               

We don’t see Jesus in the way those of His own time saw Him.

However we can enter their same joy and it’s no second hand encounter.

If we BELIEVE Him, He fills us with a magnificent delight

which goes much further than sharing someone else’s experience.