Random thought for today:

I've been reflecting lately on the words of Isaiah, "can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you" (49:15).  For some reason, it's just striking me as really *cool* how God built into the biology of our bodies ways for us to learn more about His nature!

Not that I didn't understand, at least intellectually, before I had my daughter - I could imagine what motherly feelings would be, extrapolate from other experiences in my life, and put a rough picture together.  But now, understanding occurs on a visceral level, as lovely oxytocin pumps through my blood in response to my little nursling.  It's just amazing how God chose to create a chemical in our bodies to help us understand in some small way the depth of His love and commitment. He could have created just a spiritual understanding of commitment in us, and that would have been great, but instead He chose to make it also a very physical part of our nature, so that we literally, chemically, *bond* to those that we love.  And yet, as He points out, how weak is that chemical bond (even though one of the strongest things we ever experience) compared to His love for us!

Anyway, just a thought on a quiet tuesday :)  And if this thought strikes you as cool, too, and you, like me, would like to ponder such things more - check out Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood (Sheila Kippley), and/or The Evidential Power of Beauty (Fr. Thomas Dubay).  I'm not reading either at the moment, but have read both so many times that they have really shaped my thinking, and my aforementioned thought fits right into the philosophy of both.