Sunday Meditation 12

‘What’s Love Got to Do With it?’ Part 2

My lovely granddaughter Kenedie came to visit yesterday — fresh off her “America’s Got Talent” audition the day before in Orlando. She was one of several thousand people representing about 600 acts to show up Feb. 19 at the Orange County Convention Center.

You may recall that I wrote about Kenedie last November during National Prematurity Awareness Month because she was born three months early at 1.8 pounds. She was the tiniest thing. All pink-purple and wrinkly. Her head was the size of a tennis ball and about as fuzzy.

I remember nick-naming her Spider-baby because she was hooked up to so many wires that she looked as if she got caught in a web. I also remember something else: I almost didn’t love her.

Isn’t that horrible, shameful, terrible? Here’s this scrawny little creature struggling mightily to stay alive and her own grandfather is hesitantly tentative about wholeheartedly opening up his heart.

There’s a reason: I didn’t want to be hurt.

You see, when I first saw Kenedie, she looked other-worldly in her pint-sized plastic canister — sort of like Keanu Reeves from that scene in “The Matrix” where he’s floating inside a mechanical womb, covered with slimy goo. Unsettling.

My initial reaction: “If I love her, and she dies, I’ll be devastated. Crushed. Inconsolable.” Why would I want to set myself up?

Like I said: Horrible. Shameful. Terrible. Selfish.

It did not take long for me to let down my protective shields and pour out my love, but it haunts me to this day (nearly 13 years later) that it took any time at all.

Those thoughts came rushing back to me yesterday as Kenedie told me of her Orlando adventure. My mind alternately switched back-and-forth between the beautifully bashful pre-teen standing before me and the feisty infant fighting for her life.

Thank God he let me love Kenedie way back then because it magnifies and amplifies the joy I feel every time I see now.

Jim Lamb is a retired journalist and author of “Orange Socks & Other Colorful Tales,” the story of how he survived Vietnam and kept his sense of humor. He humbly thanks God for his family. For more about Jim and his writing, visit www.jslstories.com.

ARCHIVE: Previous Meditations

Sunday Meditation 1: The Prodigal Son

Sunday Meditation 2: Ode to Jim Elliot

Sunday Meditation 3: House of Bread

Sunday Meditation 4: Run, Baby, Run

Sunday Meditation 5: When Jesus Prayed

Sunday Meditation 6: The Hebrew Alphabet

Sunday Meditation 7: Lost my Friends

Sunday Meditation 8: Jesus Saves & So Do Lifeguards

Sunday Meditation 9: Tim Tebow’s Dad & Me

Sunday Meditation 10: Coffee & Sweet Rolls

Sunday Meditation 11: What’s Love Got To Do With It? Everything

My Testimony: Stealing Psalm 40