Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

It could be a blessing

Mathew Anthony

Sep 08, 2026

September 8, 2026

I shared a picture in our cousin’s chat group of our children with their married sister and her husband, and the newborn child they were gifted. In turn, one of my cousins shared a picture of his son and daughter-in-law, both with a Doctorate in Medicine, with their newborn child in the UK. While I was excited to share our children’s family picture, I was touched by my cousin’s sharing at a deeper level.

My cousin has a doctorate in mathematics, and his wife is a veterinarian. They demonstrated great courage and supreme love in raising their eldest child, born with brain damage at birth, which stunted her growth. At 36, she is still a child: spindly, 3 feet at best, and unable to speak, but she can walk, engage, stare unnervingly at strangers, and likes to hold their hand.

Otherwise, she is a normal child who goes about her life in the precincts of her home or with the family when they go out. She is not bedridden. But in her senior years, my cousin’s mother, my father’s sister, was traumatised by cancer and was bedridden. When I visited their home, I was taken aback by what was a regular day for them – caring for the child and for the mother. They did not ask, “Why us, Lord?” “Why not someone else? “What did we do to deserve this child?” The answer lay in the plans that God had for them. “For I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jer 29:11)

As a family, they were blessed, including their daughter, who is also a merit student doing her doctorate in medicine. Where do blessings come from? I’d like to believe it comes when we have been a blessing to a family member or a friend with limitations, who can only survive when surrounded by unremitting care and love. We need to play the long game … as God is known to do.

I know of another family who, when confronted with a child with severe limitations, gave the child to a willing relative living alone to raise. The child received visits, but not the daily care or the biological parent’s affection – only that of a relative, God bless her, who genuinely desired to care for the child. It eased the parents’ misgivings about what they were doing. But misgiving it was. It never left them. That was indeed a tragic decision to have taken.

Much happened in this family, but not what we would term as ‘blessings’ – as much as the child with a limitation was not perceived as a blessing for this family. That is a conjecture given the action taken – not necessarily a fact. We can never know the motivation for the decision.

My cousin and his wife “did not look the gift horse in the mouth”. This proverb advises us to accept gifts graciously without scrutinising their value, as doing so implies ingratitude. Its ancient and obscure origin is suggested to come from St. Jerome’s Latin text around AD 400. For my cousin, their child was a God-given blessing. Much has gone right in the family: a good marriage for their son, and now a grandchild to dote over, as they doted over the child with the limitation and never allowed it to affect who they were – the parents of the child.

The Gospel of Matthew does not speak of Mary’s birth as Gospel writer Luke does. Matthew starts with the genealogy of Jesus (Mt 1: 1-24); much was wrong with the lineage. If parents were looking for a groom or bride from such a lineage, they would reject the proposal offhand. In Jesus’ lineage, there were good, holy people, and there were bad, horrible people. God did not terminate the lineage because of some bad people.

A messiah was to come from this lineage of Abraham and David. “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” (Micah 5:2)

And Mother Mary, too, through Joachim and Ann. They had prayed for a child, being childless for many years. Why did it take so long? Mother Mary was being prepared to carry the Messiah in her womb. Prepared for what?

To say ‘yes’ to being a virgin mother, knowing it was unusual and open to slants and derision – and rejection by her betrothed. The rejection of her son by her fellowmen in the Synagogue in Nazareth, where Jesus preached after gaining a reputation for the miracles he had performed in Capernaum. “Truly I tell you,” He continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.” (Lk 4:24)

To carry a heart pierced by a sword from the time Jesus was an infant. As told by Simeon to her.

The child’s father and mother marvelled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” (Lk 2:33-35)

And to witness her son carry the cross up Mount Calvary to be crucified as a common criminal with two others. To become a curse, to take our curses on Him and crucify it forever. Jesus was a gift of God to mankind. For a mother, a blessing, not as the world understands blessing – something of monetary value or of joy without the pain. But a blessing to redeem a world weighed down by sin. Word became flesh to transform the world. Do we look a gift horse in the mouth – especially a God-given child who is born with some issue at birth?

- Mathew Anthony