Who Inspires You?

Who inspires you? For me, Benji ... our youngest son, our tiny somebody - a brilliant reminder of God's grace.

Before Benji came into the world they thought he'd be too small. I can still remember being rushed to the hospital after an ultrasound revealed that our nearly full term baby was barely four pounds, hardly moving. Prayers went up ... God's hands reached down. And the next morning moments before what could have been an emergency delivery – Ben's little face shined back at me from the sonogram screen once more. This time six pounds ... maybe more, moving so much that the doctor could barely get a good picture.

"I have never seen anything like it. I'm shocked," The perinatal specialist said.

"I'm not." I smiled. "He had a lot of people praying for Him; and God is always listening."

We went home to wait just a little bit longer.

The night he was born things got scary fast. In came the doctors, in came the nurses, on went the oxygen masks and all kinds of wires that made me look like some kind of science experiment in iRobot. Benji's heart rate was dropping.

We'd waited so long for him to arrive – they talked about a C-section but God said, "Let's do this."

And we did.

It was time to push and minutes later, in some miracle of something so much bigger than us, Benjamin Isaiah came into the world.

Perfect.

Healthy.

Gorgeous.

Now at almost six months old, Benji tries so hard to raise himself up. He bobbles around as he sits up, and usually ends up face down; but he seldom gets frustrated. When he does, he is happy as long as you help him get up to try again. He is so much more patient than me and just one of the many reasons I think that our children teach us SO much more about life than we could ever teach them in a million years. Benji NEVER gives up. I love that about him.

When I look at Benji, his namesake is never lost on me.

Isaiah said "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount upon wings like eagles. They shall walk and not grow weary. They shall run and not grow faint." Isaiah 40:31

He's so small and so helpless – yet I wonder if he knows he inspires me. He challenges me to be better, to get back up when I fall and smile when I land on my behind. He reminds me that God is still on the throne, that He is still able, that prayers are still answered and people are still good.

Benji reaches out to grasp my hand ... his entirely wrapped around my smallest finger. I wonder if he knows I grasp on to him too? I hope someday when he's big enough he will read this and see what a difference he made even when he was so small. That he helped God reveal His face, that he showed a group of women and men, his mom included, just what Jesus can do when we call upon His name.

But most of all, I hope Ben will see just what I see when I look into his big blue joyful eyes ... inspiration.

Who inspires you?

Copyright © 2013 Brooke Keith. Used by permission.