A baby girl named Madison entered the world last week. She is fearfully and wonderfully made. Her life is a gift. Every child is. Scripture is clear on that:
“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.” — Psalm 127:3
We rightly celebrate new life. We should.
But we must also tell the truth about the arrangement that brought her into a home without a mother.
What Was Taken Away
For nine months this little girl lived inside her mother’s body. She heard her mother’s voice, felt her heartbeat, recognized her scent, and experienced the unique biological and emotional bonding that only a mother can provide. The moment she was born, the person she most needed and longed for was taken away. She was handed to two men who, however well-intentioned, are not her mother. She will grow up never knowing the woman who carried her, nourished her, and whose body was designed by God to be her first home.
This is not how God ordered creation.
The Creational Blueprint
In the beginning, God made them male and female (Genesis 1:27). He joined them in the one-flesh union of marriage and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28; 2:24). Jesus Himself affirmed this design when He said:
“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” — Matthew 19:4–5
The family God created has a mother and a father. That is not cultural preference. That is the creational blueprint.
A Mother Is Not Optional
A mother’s presence is not optional or interchangeable. God designed the female body to nurture life in the womb and then continue that nurture through nursing, bonding, and the irreplaceable mother-child relationship. Scripture repeatedly honors the unique role of the mother. The fifth commandment assumes both father and mother: “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12). The wisdom literature speaks of a mother’s instruction and comfort. Even the most tender image of God’s own care is maternal:
“As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.” — Isaiah 66:13
When we intentionally create children in order to separate them from their mother — whether through commercial surrogacy or other arrangements — we are not cooperating with God’s design. We are rewriting it. We are treating the mother-child bond as disposable and treating the child as a product that can be ordered, carried by one person, and delivered to others. As one observer rightly noted, we would not do this to puppies. Yet we do it to image-bearers of God.
Compassion Without Compromise
This is not said in hatred. Guy Benson and Adam Wise are image-bearers too. They are people for whom Christ died. Same-sex attracted people deserve compassion, dignity, and the full offer of the gospel. But compassion does not require us to call something “good” that God has not called good. Love does not mean affirming every desire or celebrating every arrangement. Love “rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). And the truth is that children are not accessories to adult fulfillment. They are human beings who have a God-given right to their mother and father whenever possible.
We live in a fallen world. Some children lose parents through death, abandonment, or tragedy. In those cases the church should rush to care for the orphan and the widow. But there is a profound difference between responding to brokenness and deliberately manufacturing it. Surrogacy that severs a child from her mother by design is not redemptive. It is a rejection of the order God established at creation.
Still Precious — Still Denied a Mother
Madison is precious. Her life has infinite worth. She will be loved by the two men raising her. That does not change the deeper reality: she was denied the mother God designed for her. We can and should pray for her. We can and should pray for those raising her. And we can and should continue to speak the truth in love — that God’s design for the family is still good, still true, and still the path of human flourishing.
May the church hold fast to that design with both clarity and compassion. If you want the convictions behind this ministry in one place, they are written plainly in the statement of faith — marriage as God gave it, and dignity for every image-bearer.
A Chaplain’s Prayer
Father of mercies,
We thank You for Madison — fearfully and wonderfully made, a heritage from Your hand. Guard her life, her heart, and her story. Where she has been denied the mother You designed for her, surround her still with Your comfort — the comfort You Yourself compare to a mother’s. Let no hardness grow where tenderness is needed, and let no silence fall where truth is required.
We pray for Guy and for Adam. They are image-bearers for whom Christ died. Meet them with grace. Soften what is proud. Heal what is wounded. Draw them to the only Savior who can remake a heart. Give them the courage to love Madison well while facing the harder truth that good intentions do not rewrite Your design.
We pray for the woman who carried this child — known to You even if unseen by us. Remember her. Heal her. Lead her into the light of Your Son.
And we pray for Your church. Give us clarity without cruelty, and compassion without compromise. Keep us from celebrating what You have not called good. Keep us from hating those for whom You died. Make us a people who protect mother and father for every child whenever it is in our power — and who run toward orphans when tragedy, not design, has left them alone.
Restore what our age has tried to redesign. Teach us again that children are not products, mothers are not optional, and Your ways are still good.
In the name of Jesus — the One who welcomed the little children and will one day make all things new.
Amen.
From a chaplain’s heart — grace and peace to you.