Prior to speaking at our church on the 20th, the McWilliamses showed a slightly shortened version of a “Family Story” video you can see at Gail’s website.
I’d say Lydia, their next-to-youngest, was probably about 11 or 12 when she was interviewed for the video. And what she said shook me up.
“I can’t imagine what the world would be without me,” she begins. “The world would probably be missing my . . . “ Hold on! Hold on!
What did she just say?!?
“I can’t imagine what the world would be without me. The world would probably be missing. . . .”
Once more. Slower. With emphasis. “. . . The world would probably be missing. . . .”
Did you catch that? She wasn’t trying to think of what she would have missed if she hadn’t been born. She was thinking of what the world would have missed.
Put another way: I’m worth something. I have value. Indeed, she was able to identify specific things the world would be missing if she had never been born.
“The world would probably be missing my smile, my love for animals, and my worship.”
And she said these things, as I said, when she was maybe 11 or 12. What teenager do you know who could say anything about what the world would miss if he or she wasn’t alive?
And then, right after Lydia, the video has Connor, the youngest McWilliams, on screen. I’d say he was maybe 9 or 10 when he was interviewed. And he makes comments like these:
- “With my name, I could be a lawyer, a judge, a pastor, or lots of other things.”
- “The things I bring the world are my personality, my athletic skill, my smarts and my muscle.”
- “I like Anna, Lindey and Holly [his older sisters] because Lindey and Holly tell the jokes and Anna is the only one who can laugh at them.”
And, finally,
- “I told my mom the other day I can’t wait to be 30 because I’m going to be a dad.”
Again: did you catch that? A 9- or 10-year-old said those things. But suppose I’m blind. Suppose he were 11 or 12. What 11- or 12-year-old do you know who has such a sense of “place” in the world?
And so it went with at least one more of the five McWilliams children. (All five are interviewed on the video; but I only remember being thunderstruck by three of them.)
Lindey—the one who would have never been born if the doctor had had a say in the matter (remember, when her mother said she wanted to keep her baby, the doctor said it was a foolish decision–with a disdainful emphasis on that word foolish)– . . . Lindey says, “One of the gifts I’m privileged to give to the world is the tool of dance. The particular type of dancing that I do is interpretive dancing which uses a combination of classical ballet . . . and sign language and expression just to bring people into the song. I use these things so that I can communicate the message of the song.”
May I say it? Would that we might raise children with similar vision . . . for themselves and for others!
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