In 2009, Simon Cowell told an interviewer, “God, no, I couldn’t have children. If I had them here drawing on the wall I’d go nuts. You’ve got to be up at a certain time. Got to listen when all you want to do is sit in a corner thinking.” Now he’s had a change of heart, telling the BBC, “I’m proud to be a dad. It’s something I hadn’t thought of before, but now I know I feel good about it.”
Of course, there’s far more to the story. Cowell is fathering a child with Lauren Silverman, with whom he reportedly began an affair four years ago. Her husband and Cowell were best friends at the time. While he’s now happy to be a father, Cowell apparently doesn’t plan to live with his child. He will reportedly give Lauren and their child his $10 million house in Beverly Hills, while he will live in another property nearby and visit the child when he can.
In other baby news, Prince William told a crowd in Wales last week, “I have to say that I thought Search and Rescue duties over Snowdonia were physically and mentally demanding, but looking after a 3 week-old baby is up there!” He said his newborn son is “pretty loud” but “extremely good looking.”
I’m interested in stories about babies because Janet and I learned this week that we are having a granddaughter. Ryan and Candice are expecting their first child next January; tests this week confirmed the baby’s gender. I can already tell that I’ll be useless as a disciplinarian. I have a picture of her sonogram on my phone I’ll be happy to show you. And after raising two boys (three if you count me), Janet is thrilled about the news.
Carl Sandburg was right: “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” Each child is his miracle. God didn’t make me because he thought the world needs more people—at seven billion, we have enough humans as it is. God made me for the same reason Ryan and Candice chose to have their baby—he wanted a personal relationship with me.
Before the Fall, God could walk “in the garden in the cool of the day” with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8). Because of their sin, our first parents “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God.” So “the Lord God called to the man” (v. 9). He’s been calling to us ever since.
God loves you—as you are, where you are, right now. Is that fact so commonplace to you that it’s lost its joy? Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel is a great antidote for spiritual complacency: “We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that he should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at his love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.”
Are you amazed by his grace today?
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