Dear John Paul

Dear John Paul,

I should introduce you to this little blog of mine, since we are quickly approaching your arrival into our world.

So hi.  I'm your mom.

And I still can't believe we're doing this again.

You see, you were sort of a surprise.

Your Daddy and I had kind of decided we weren't going to have any more children.  Your Big Sister was going to be our only child.  We were in a rocky place when we found out about you - finances were extremely tight, our marriage was coming out of one of those valleys, my job was stressful, and Big Sister was entering toddler-hood.

So when I looked at the calendar and realized something was "off" a few days after the New Year, I found a pregnancy test under the guest room sink that I have no idea how old it was.  Your Daddy was still asleep and Big Sister sat on her potty in the bathroom with me while I cried and panicked over the little word on the test - "PREGNANT."

Oh, holy cow.

How were we going to do this?  We're barely making things happen with just ONE baby, let alone two.  I just had knee surgery a few weeks beforehand and had taken strong painkillers - Are you even ok in there?  How is Ben going to handle this news?  What about Brooke Allen?  How is MOM going to react?  What do we do?

And in those few moments of freaking out and talking to my wonderful mom friends in our little Facebook group, I began to realize a few things.

People much poorer than us in much worse situations have babies all the time.  People in worse marriage positions than us have babies all the time.  People who do drugs have babies who are ok.  Babies are never a mistake.  Babies are awesome.  Your Daddy and I are two loving and capable people who can make this happen.  And most importantly...

God never makes mistakes.  We read this over and over in scripture.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart. - Jeremiah 1:5

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 

- Matthew 6:26

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. 

- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together. 

- Colossians 1:17

So if God never makes mistakes, and you are born with a purpose...

Then why am I so worried?

So I gave up worrying.  

I don't have to worry.  God gave us yet another gift of life as a product of Your Daddy's and my love for each other.  We are going to have a BABY.  Another precious piece of Heaven that we get to care for and love on and raise to be a productive human being who we pray returns the praise to the God who gave you to us.

That old saying, "God never gives us more than we can handle" is totally not true.  He gives us so much more, so that we rely on Him for our needs.  And our needs throughout this pregnancy have been fully met.  We have a home and more than enough food in our fridge, really great insurance, we are working on our financial stability daily, our marriage is more intact than ever, and Big Sister is slowly (ok, not really at all) getting the picture of actually being a Big Sister.

So here we are at 36 weeks pregnant.

At my appointment last Tuesday, you are head down and engaged, and I am dilated 1 cm, which is more than I was dilated with Big Sister at the time of her induction.  And with the way you have been MMA fighting my pelvis and hips for the past 24 hours, I'm going to assume when I go to my appointment on Monday, that we've made some more progression.

Everyone is telling me you will be here by Labor Day weekend, which I am starting to believe myself.  

Which would be pure poetic justice - you see, Labor Day weekend and August 30 is our wedding anniversary.  Six years to be exact.  I was born on my parent's anniversary, and my whole life, I have heard nothing but, "I never got an anniversary after you were born" from Your Gigi.  She is not so secretly hoping you are born on the 30th so that she can rub this in my face even more.

Honestly?  I don't care what day you are born.  I just want to meet you.  There must be something extra special about you for God to give you to us at such a time.  I think you are going to do great things.

It's funny, when I was pregnant with Big Sister, she would go bananas in my belly when music was played.  She loved church music and Tom Petty, specifically.  And now that she is here, she loves dancing and singing so much.  She sings along with the radio and we catch her singing to her babies all the time.  She dances whenever music is on and yells, "DANCE, DADDY!" even in restaurants.  She's even trying to match pitch with me while I sing.

You?  You love preaching.  I can barely sit still during sermons and Sunday School lesson because you are squirming so much.  So will you be a great preacher?  A teacher?  A politician?  Who knows!

All I know is you are special.  You are so loved.  You are going to be something great.  And you will be ours for a little while by the beautiful provision of the Great God we serve.

Son, I love you.  As we count down these last few weeks/days/hours, I sit in prayer and vigilance, waiting for you.  Waiting until I see that beautiful and perfect face of yours that we have only seen through ultrasound.  Waiting until I hear your first breath and first cry.  Waiting to hold you close to my chest and cry for our wonderful little miracle.  Waiting to be YOUR Mommy.

And I still can't believe we're doing this again.  How great is our God?