God's gift to us

I think it is very appropriate that the first post on our blog is about a wonderful gift of love and grace that God has given us. Yesterday we found out that we were going to be a mom and dad! The silly grin on my face hasn't faded even a little bit. In fact, I'm pretty sure I smiled while I slept. I'm absolutely blown away. And so humbled by what God has given us.

But before I get ahead of myself, I just have to share how my wife broke the news. She dropped by the office with a "surprise": a tiny metal box with a ribbon around it. "Schweet", I thought, "chocolates!" I promptly opened the box and saw... two pacifiers! She didn't know whether we were expecting a boy or a girl, so she got a blue and a pink one. How amazing is that?! It is the best surprise ever. My beautiful wife is expecting our beautiful first baby. I think she glowed just as much when she gave me those pacifiers as when she walked down the isle at our wedding. And I love her all the more.

After jumping up and down and shouting like an idiot (which is par for the course according to some of my friends), we gave thanks to God for our first child. One of the things that amazes me when I think about all of this, is the fact that God gave this gift to two sinners. We don't deserve this. There is nothing that we could have given God, nothing that we could have done, no penance that we could perform or prayer that we could pray that would have obligated God to grace us with this baby. This is all of grace. This is all because of His love for us and not because of our love for Him. Our heavenly Father has given us a great gift (Jam. 1:17). Wow!

In my quiet time I read Rom. 8:32: "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" God didn't hold back His own Son... as awesome as our baby is and as deeply as we love our first child, this is not the best that God has given us. The best is Jesus Christ, God's own Son. Please pray with us that one day our child will come to see and savor the glory of Jesus Christ and trust in Him.