What Tomorrow Holds

Little Baby,

Tomorrow the world will decide
Whether you are worthy of life
They will use their best instruments
To painstakingly measure
Each tiny feature of your forming body

They will compare what they find
With the millions of others they've studied
They will make their best educated predictions
As to how long and in what way
You would live on this earth

And they will base the value they assign to you
On the numbers they have gathered
They will advise me to keep you alive
If they predict that you will live a long life,
Feel little pain, and cause me little discomfort

They will advise me to end your life as soon as possible
If they predict that you would not live to a full life expectancy,
That you may have to endure suffering,
Or that it may difficult for me to walk beside you
As you struggle through your life

Little Baby,
Tomorrow I will love you
As I have loved you today
Tomorrow I will protect you
As I have protected you
Since the day you were sent to me

Perhaps I will breathe a sigh of relief
When the medical experts predict
A long healthy life for you
And an easy, predictable road for me

But if they deem you unworthy of life
If they advise me that you would prefer not to live
And that the world would benefit
From not having to meet the challenges
Your unique life would present it
I will fight for you

I will fight for you
Because life's value is more than an equation
Than can be computed from the days of life
One is predicted to live
And the degree of hardship they are predicted to face

I will fight for you
Because my love for you is not founded
On what you can offer to me
Because love does not recoil at the prospect of pain
Or abandon when another suffers

I will fight for you
Because ending your life early
Would rob you of the chance
To see the sun's rays peeking
Between the ominous clouds
To learn the blessing of enduring
When everyone tells you to give up
To know the peace of resting in warm arms
That would not leave you in your darkest hour

I will fight for you
Because the world may not know that it needs you
But I know

They have forgotten that life without trials
Brings laziness, discontentment, and self-centered greed
They have forgotten that in giving ourselves
For the helpless, the hopeless, the defenseless and innocent
We learn patience, endurance, thankfulness, and selfless love
In laying down our own hopes, and sacrificing ourselves
We find greater joy than our own dreams
Could ever have brought us
I learned this when I fought for your sisters' lives
And I pray that I can teach them as I fight for yours

Little Baby,
Tomorrow we only learn their best guess
As to what sort of life we will share
But I promise our ways will not part
Until the hands that placed you in my safe arms
Reach down to lift you back to His