SOMETHING ABOUT SHEKINAH

There is something about the touch of Shekinah to my skin—something that has no price tag. Some hushed inviolability only her mother can grasp.

It’s not only the taut skin that slithers to my side and arms when she pulls me close every day after work. It’s a certain presence that she emits and one that my vulnerable being seems to absorb. Sometimes it’s almost indecipherable to me. But I know it exists. Although most of the times she prefers to bond with her dad, but when she locks her eyes to mine and communicate to me with her seemingly innocent whirling hands, I just knew some gift is lurking in her soul, one which is intensely profound.

I won’t say she is the smartest one-year-old there is, although I see some startling signs. But my gut tells me she is going to be more than a gifted kid.


Long time ago, probably about a little later after I turned 12, I prayed. I summoned all strength there was in me. I had to wrestle with God. I prayed that God would send me not only his right man for me but also a baby that would change everything. Every day, of that same year and the next years that follow until I finally had her, I prayed the same prayer. And each year, my prayer became even more specific. Two years back, like Hannah, who prayed the same barren woman’s prayer, I vowed to offer my child to Him in any ministry He sees her fit. And then, a year after that, I plead that she be gifted individually for His sake. Then she came, out of the blue after one excruciating miscarriage.

She came when people thought I would not have any. When my mother was resigned to have none from me to continue her line. When friends thought my years are past bearing age. When relatives thought a cesarean section was more like it. She came, birth pains and all.

I heard her first cry. I felt her first clutch at my breasts even when they refused to feed her. I saw the steady gaze she gave me after a few weeks when other babies her age just stare anywhere.

Recently, every now and then, she wakes me up in the middle of the night with a muffled request here and there--that at one year old.

I don’t know, but this could just be any other proud mother’s undaunted trust in her child. But then again, that old faith's tug in me believes there is something more about Shekinah.