On new babies and fine wine

My last post shared how this has been a year of change for our family. Our oldest daughter started high school forty minutes away. And I went back to work.

However, that is not the biggest--or most beautiful--of the changes our family is facing. In December, only a couple months after I started working, I discovered that I am pregnant. Yes, pregnant!!

My husband recently celebrated his forty-fifth birthday!

A new child is always, always a gift. And I am grateful. But, especially in the beginning, I will admit I also was a bit overwhelmed (along with being exhausted).

How would this work? Had we been completely foolish?

And, of course, the answers were (in order)--with God's help all things are possible, and no. Honestly seeking God's will, and leaving room for Him to work in our lives in ways different from what we ourselves might have planned is never, never foolish. Except, perhaps, in the way Jesus was foolish, He was both God's own fool and the King of Kings. Let us all love like Him and be fools like Him!

Kate and my Dad share a birthday. She just turned nine!

I also had other concerns about my pregnancy, however. I think it is inevitable that after you experience significant loss and trauma related to childbirth, you can never return to the innocence of thinking everything will naturally just work out.

I was (and continue to be, to a certain extent) afraid of losing the baby, and also for my own life. My last miscarriage was very traumatic, and I am surprised to realize how much it affects me even now. However, I also must add that as God helps me see those scars, He also helps heal them.

One of my biggest challenges, especially early in the pregnancy, is to trust between doctor's visits that my baby will continue to be alive. I allow my children to come to visits with me so they can hear the heartbeat, which is such a joy to them, but doing so is an act of the will that requires me to place hope over fear.

At my second visit, in January, I was feeling concerned for the baby and was weighed down by worries about how everything would work out and whether we had been so ridiculous to allow this to happen!

And then I heard that heartbeat again, and the tears fell. I really don't think I had expected to hear it.

Ready for their Christmas concert . . . .

And on the way home, God blessed me with a gift that has stayed with me ever since, and that has steadied my heart and comforted me in such a powerful way.

I was listening to Fr. John Ricardo's program Christ is the Answer on Ave Maria Radio (see 52:40). He was discussing fulfillment. He explained it is like asking for water--and instead, having someone bring you a glass of "exquisite Italian wine." He said such a gesture would "not just quench your thirst; [it would] bring you joy." That is what God wants to give us--abundantly more than what we even ask for. We may think we have all we could want, but He wants to give us more. Out of His abundant love, out of His merciful Heart, He desires to pour Himself into our hearts and lives.

As Fr. John spoke, I knew this was what this new baby was to our family: an gift of God's abundance; Him telling us that although we thought our family was just fine, He had something even greater in mind for us; a gift of His abundant love that He wanted to share with our family--and that we couldn't have received if not for my husband and I trying to say "Yes" to God, and leaving room for Him in our marriage.

Christmas morning!

If you consider our family as a banquet, each member surely provides a different, but necessary and beautiful course. We could have continued on with water, but this child is the fine wine the Lord truly wants to serve our family. This child adds something, again, that transforms the entire atmosphere of the feast. We were happy with the relatively comfortable place we'd found ourselves, where we could kind of look ahead and see how things would work out, but He wants to stretch us, and to make room for more of Himself. He wants us to walk blindly in faith, so that we can arrive at a place even more beautiful than what we'd mapped out of the factors we could grasp, however good they may have been.

Thank You, dear Lord, for loving us so much that You want more for us than we can even imagine for ourselves. Thank You for helping us let go of things that are comfortable, and for walking with us into uncharted waters, so that we may receive more of Yourself. Thank You for being the One Who can meet all our needs.

Recently, we learned the baby is a girl. On Nick's insistence, we currently refer to her as "Sissy." Thank You, also, dear Lord, for the gift of Sissy--who I promise will one day bear another name!