Parallels

"I can't hear her! I can't hear her!" Maddie, my almost-three-year-old granddaughter was saying. I was viewing a video, via internet, of her getting my birthday present--a read-aloud story book in my voice. Her daddy was telling her to say, "Thank you, Mimi," but she was a little confused, used to seeing me on Skype or at least hearing me on the phone. She had even been looking for me in the pages of the book.

This was almost as good as being there! When Maddie heard her name inserted in the princess story I was reading, I could see the reaction of puzzled delight on her face. Then, when the musical cue for me to read or for her to turn the pages sounded, her head full of red curls bounced to the rhythm as she smiled and swayed along. Be still, my heart!

Each time Maddie heard her name, she caught her breath, her eyes widening in wonder. A few minutes before, when her mommy was struggling to open the tightly taped package, Maddie and her five-year-old sister, Anne-Marie, were giddy with anticipation. "Are you excited?" Tammy, my daughter-in-law, stalled tantalizingly, pulling off the tape.

"I'm excited," Anne-Marie squealed.

"I 'cited!" the birthday girl bubbled. Then, turning, she disappeared from camera range and I heard her say, "I hide!" as she briefly ran away. It was the same reaction caught on video at Christmas when Santa appeared at their door. Anne-Marie had run screaming to her bedroom as the imaginary stuff of her dreams materialized before her eyes. Sensory overload. Some things are just too much to bear!

"We hid as it were our faces from Him," the Bible says in Isaiah 53:3. This time it was not joyful excitement, though. It was fear and dread as the Bible mixes prophecies of Jesus' disfigurement of crucifixion and the terror experienced by sinners at impending doom and judgment. They will have refused the love and sacrifice extended to them by the Saviour sent to save them, and now it was too late.

Someday, a video of our lives, as it were, will be played for us, and if we have not accepted Jesus as our Saviour there will be unrefutable evidence to convict us.

"Tell me the Story of Jesus," the old hymn goes, "Write on my heart every word." This is His birthday present to us, told in His own words. How much better to receive Him now, and enjoy Him and His good gifts for eternity. We all have birthdays, but by being born again, we can have the best birthday of all!