I wanted to post this when I saw it in the news yesterday.  I dared not, because I’d have probably been blamed for any delay :).  But now baby has safely arrived!  Praise the Lord, both he and his mum are fine!  (No, not MY baby, except in the sense that he belongs a little bit to everyone in our church.)  Anyway, now I can post it.

Births drop on Halloween.  Apparently, there is a hormonal connection between a woman’s desire to give birth (or not give birth) on a particular day, and the actual timing of the birth.  Births drop by 11% on 31 October, and are up by 5% on Valentine’s Day.

So why in the world is a pastor blogging about this?  For me, as we rejoice in the birth of a new little one, it also served as a reminder of how little we understand about the amazing process by which our God gives life.  Scientists study things, and learn so much, and then a door opens to new facts, and they discover that there are immense areas of knowledge about which they were entirely clueless.  This is not true only of birth, but about everything.  Our God, in infinite wisdom and knowledge, has assembled a glorious creation, and delights in our discoveries of things He knew about before they were even made.

News reports like this should cause us to humble ourselves before the Creator, acknowledging just how far above and beyond us He truly is.

One more (totally unrelated) take away thought.  If you, as a believer, have ever wondered whether your family should take part in Halloween, you might think about the last two paragraphs of that news report.  Our family always gives it a miss.