Sweet Solace

He nestles into my neck and the milky sweet smell of him envelops me. At three weeks old he has already sealed a bond that will last a lifetime – for the rest of our lives at least, his great-grandfather and me.

I am reminded how fragile newborns are, their limbs flailing around with no muscle control yet and eyes not able to focus but searching around to lock with yours. He is perfect. Beautiful. A gift from God with traces of heavenly places still clinging to his tender skin.

But oh what a messy, scary place he has entered. Across the internet comes news of parents watching as their precious children are beheaded. The five-year-old son of an Anglican minister cut in half by ISIS.

The babe I hold roots around for food, face red and fists balled up in knots, and my mind drifts to the mothers holding babies they can’t feed. There is no milk, no food, no water. Nothing.

What must that be like? To know your baby will scream through the darkness and you have nothing to give him?

These scenes haunt me at night and I toss on my pillow, wanting to shut them away. Why do we have to know all these things that happen across the globe? The burden of it all is too much.

And yet, the call to pray for them is stronger than sleep. Is it our task at hand?  A sin if we forget to share their burdens with the Father? I think it is.

Perhaps it is a way God shrinks the world and brings us together. They are, many of them, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and they need us now. We may need them later.

Do you think people in China pray for us? That we will be set free from consumerism, greed, diluted discipleship? I know they do.

A favorite line from the Psalms comes now…

May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. ~ Psalm 141:2

I love that. It evokes all the senses and smells of our prayers thrown like incense on hot altar coals, filling the room with a fragrance that God likes to smell. It is a picture of Christ whose life was both sacrifice and fragrance to God (Ephesians 5:2). The more He increases in us the more we become the aroma of life to those around us.

He falls asleep in my ams, this newborn child whose name is Solace. What an odd thing to name a child. I’ve never met anyone with that name. Solace means “comfort” but did you know it also means “consolation”?

Consolation, consolement, and solace are terms referring to psychological comfort given to someone who has suffered severe, upsetting loss, such as the death of a loved one. It is typically provided by expressing shared regret for that loss and highlighting the hope for positive events in the future. Consolation is an important topic arising in history, the arts, philosophy, and psychology.

Consolement is what you might offer that father whose son was murdered by ISIS. There’s little else you could offer a man in those circumstances. Perhaps it might have saved Robin Williams.

It was Barnabus’ nickname in the New Testament–“Son of consolation.”

“To be of good comfort” can be translated “to pray.” It is a name for God in the New Testament: The God of all Comfort (2 Cor. 1:3-5) and also a characteristic of Christ “for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation (i.e. our comfort) also abounds in Christ.”

Did your mother know when she named you, little man, that she was sealing the call of God on your life?

Solace’s last name is Cabellero, a Spanish name we may associate with old Western movies where Mexican cowboys were called “cabelleros.” But cowboy is not a true translation of cabellero. It is more accurately translated “knight, cavalier – one trained in arms and horsemanship. A gentleman.”

And as you were dubbed on the day of your birth by your Uncle Jed, you are “the knight who brings comfort.”

And aren’t you just what we need in this world today?