Clara was six and a half, and she was brushing her teeth very slowly, because slow tooth-brushing was how Clara put off going to sleep.
Her mother, Anna, was sitting on the edge of the tub watching her, which is where all the big questions from Clara's life had so far been asked. Why does the moon follow us when we drive? was asked on the edge of the tub. Do fish sleep with their eyes open? was asked on the edge of the tub. Why does Grandpa's heart not work anymore? was asked on the edge of the tub and answered with real tears and a long hug.
Tonight, Clara spit out her toothpaste, wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and said:
Mommy? How did God know me before I was born?
Anna set her coffee cup down on the sink very carefully, because some questions deserve the full weight of both of your hands.
The Lamp
"Come sit on my lap," Anna said.
They went to Clara's room. Clara's room had a small lamp shaped like a mushroom that Anna's mother had given Clara on her third birthday. Anna clicked it on. The room filled with warm yellow light.
"Okay," said Anna. "Look at the lamp."
"I'm looking at the lamp."
"The person who made this lamp — the person in the factory who shaped the mushroom and put in the light bulb and painted the red top with the little white dots — did that person have the lamp in their mind before they made it?"
Clara thought about this. "Yes," she said finally, with the serious face she used when thinking hard. "Because you can't make something if you don't know what it is going to be."
"That's right," Anna said. "The lamp existed in somebody's mind before it existed in the world. The idea of the lamp came first. The lamp came second."
"Okay."
"So when you look at this lamp, you know for sure that someone was thinking about it before it was real."
Clara nodded, pressed against her mother's collarbone, one little hand resting on Anna's wrist.
The Cookie
"Now," said Anna, "remember when Grandma made the Christmas cookies shaped like stars and trees and the little sheep with the sugar on top?"
Clara's eyes lit up. "I ate a star and a tree. And a sheep."
"Yes. And before Grandma made them, where did the shapes come from?"
Clara thought for a second. "From the cookie cutters!"
"Yes. The cookie cutters were made long before the cookies. Somebody in a factory far away made a star-shaped metal piece and a sheep-shaped metal piece. The shape of your Christmas cookie was decided by somebody who was not Grandma, and that decision happened years before Grandma even baked."
"Okay."
"Before the dough became a star — the star was already decided. The dough didn't decide to be a star. The dough became a star because somebody, somewhere, long before, had already planned the star."
Clara was very still in her mother's lap. She could feel the next sentence coming.
The Finger
"Give me your hand," Anna said.
Clara held out her hand. Anna held the tip of Clara's pointer finger gently under the mushroom lamp.
"Do you know what this is?"
"A finger."
"Look closer. See those tiny little lines? Little swirls, little loops?"
Clara squinted. "Fingerprints."
"Yes. Your fingerprint."
Anna turned her own pointer finger under the light beside Clara's. "Mine. Different. Daddy's is different. Grandma's is different. Grandpa's was different. Every person who has ever been born has a different set of little swirls on the end of their fingers. Billions and billions of people — and no two have ever, in all of history, been exactly the same."
"Really?"
"Really."
Clara stared at her finger. She moved it closer to the light.
"Clara," Anna said, "when was the pattern of your fingerprint decided? Was it decided when you were three? When you were two? When you were born?"
"No… I think I had fingerprints when I was a tiny baby."
"Yes. Before you were born. Inside Mommy's tummy. Before you had ears or eyelashes or a single tooth. But the pattern had to exist in somebody's mind before your skin was made — because how would the skin know what to print if nobody knew the pattern? The same way the lamp existed in the lamp-maker's mind before the lamp, and the star-shape existed in the cookie-cutter-maker's mind before the cookie. Your fingerprint existed in God's mind before your skin was made."
Clara stared at her finger for a long time.
Anna waited.
The Answer She Asked
"And Clara," Anna said softly, "if the pattern of your finger was in God's mind before your skin was made — how much more was you in God's mind before you were made?"
Clara's eyes got very big.
"The pattern of you," Anna said. "Your laugh. The exact way you tilt your head when Daddy tells a joke. The way you wrinkle your nose when the soup is too hot. The way you love horses and hate peas. The way your voice sounds when you're about to cry. The way your hand fits in mine. All of you was in God's mind before any of you was made. He didn't make the skin and then think, oh, let me invent a pattern for the fingertips. He had the whole fingerprint in His mind first. He had the whole you in His mind first."
"That's what David said in the Bible," Anna went on. Her voice was the voice that Clara knew meant the Bible was now the real authority in the conversation. "He said, Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Every day of your life was written down. Before you had eyes to read it."
Clara's little chest was going up and down very slowly. She was thinking so hard she had nearly forgotten to breathe.
"And Mommy," Clara whispered, "that means He chose me."
"Yes, baby. He chose you."
"Before the stars?"
"Before the stars."
"Before the whole world?"
"Before the whole world. The Bible says He chose us in Jesus before the creation of the world. You weren't an idea He had halfway through. You weren't a mistake He had to fix. You were in His mind before He made the grass, and before He made the fish, and before He made the light."
Clara stared at her finger in the mushroom light. A tiny, slow tear worked its way out of the corner of her eye and stopped on her cheek.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, baby."
"Then I wasn't ever going to not be loved?"
Anna closed her eyes for just a second, because some questions from children are the exact shape of the gospel and you did not know they were coming and you are not going to get to answer them twice. She opened her eyes and looked right at her daughter.
"No, Clara. You were never going to not be loved. He loved you before there was anything to love with. He picked you before there was anyone to pick you. And He is never going to stop. The hand that drew your fingerprint is not going to let you go."
Clara said nothing. She reached up and wrapped her arms around Anna's neck and pressed her forehead into Anna's shoulder. They stayed like that for a very long time.
After Lights-Out
Later, when Clara was tucked in and half-asleep, she said something small into her pillow.
Mommy? Will you tell me about the fingerprint again tomorrow night?
"Every night, if you want," Anna said.
"Forever?"
"Forever."
Anna kissed her forehead and clicked off the mushroom lamp. She stood in the doorway for a second in the dim hallway light, looking at her sleeping child. A child God had held in His mind before any star was bright. A child He had known by name before Anna had ever been a mother. A child whose fingerprint had been drawn by the same hand that had separated the waters and hung Orion in the sky. A child who had been chosen.
All of her, chosen. All of her. Before the world.
For the Grown-ups Reading This to a Child
If you are reading this to a child tonight, pause for a moment before you close the tab. The question Clara asked — how did God know me before I was born? — is not a children's question. It is the deepest question a person can ask, and it is answered in the same Scripture that answers it for Clara. Psalm 139 says your child's days were written down before one of them came to be. Ephesians 1:4 says God chose His people in Christ before the foundation of the world. Faith itself is a gift from the same Hand that drew the fingerprint.
Your child is asking the right question. And so, possibly, are you. You were found before you were born too. The same Father who chose her chose you. The same Hand that drew her pattern drew yours. He does not give up on what He has drawn.
Kiss the child. Turn off the lamp. Go to sleep held.