by Ruth Menge, St. Luke Lutheran Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan
“God Chose You … and that changes everything,” LFL’s 2022 Life Sunday theme was an especially meaningful quote for a member of our congregation. In 1973, she was home alone while her husband was at work, and their eight-year-old son, and 11-, 13-, and 15-year-old daughters were in school. As she put laundry away in their son’s room, the thought came to her, “I want to send you another son.” Her initial response was, “Someone’s talking in this house, but they’re not talking to me.”
Not long after that, she found she was pregnant. Since ultrasounds were not common then, she expected another son. However, when the baby was born, she was a girl.
For a long time the mother wondered what “send another son” meant. Did it mean we are all sons of God? Was it meant to teach her that she was one of God’s sons?
Years went by and the daughter married. In 2002, she gave birth to her first child, a son. The grandmother finally realized, yes, God had “sent another son.” She has had the great joy in sharing with him, “God chose you.” And not only one son, but he was followed by a daughter and two more sons. It took 28 years, but the word came true and was multiplied into three sons.
Scripture says, “God chose us in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). God chose each of us, in Jesus, His chosen Son, not 28 years earlier, but before He created the world! “Because of his love he had already decided to adopt us through Jesus Christ. He freely chose to do this so that the kindness he had given us in his dear Son would be praised and given glory” (Ephesians 1:5). Such knowledge is an awe-inspiring, amazing, and humbling truth.