New Years Eve brought the best news we could have hoped for that night.... Amy and Andrew Brown, filled with life! And we found out yesterday that little baby Brown is a GIRL! Welcome princess..... we can't wait to meet you!
Then Valentines day, the perfect cheer for our dreaded drive to the airport (literally, we stopped to pick up mail on the drive there), we got the announcement.... another Grether cousin on the way too! And to know soon boy or girl for this one too..... we are so eager to hear! Sept couldn't be looking better!
And so fun... slipped in between these two, cousin Sarah is expecting her first too! Amy and Sarah's birthdays are just weeks apart and anniversaries are just months apart and now their first babies will be just days... what a joy!
We are overjoyed for all of you! We are praying that as you, Amy and Heather and Sarah, carry these lives- distinct from you and yet within you- that you will be held by Christ's peace and deepened in trusting the God who knows every beat and every breath of your life and your baby's. Even now you are making hard choices and bearing the burden of guarding and providing for these lives within you. And as you do to the least of these, you are doing unto Him.
Andrew and Greg and Garret, as you love your wives through these weeks of knitting-life, and needing-backrubs, of nausea, dreams and fears, prayers and preparation, appointments and announcements, may you be led by the One who knit you, who first loved you, who knows you, and who you need ever so desperately for wisdom, peace, strength, perspective.
Caring for this child is not about you, dear beautiful parents. It's about the child and it's about you honoring God as you love and serve the little life he's given you. If parenthood works out anything for you like it has for us, it won't always make you look good and you won't always feel like you chose the smartest plans for sleeps and eats and teaching or products of any kind, but you'll get to be humbled by love, humbled to love, and could there be any sweeter gift than his, Living Love? Even with failure as constant as ours, the privilege is all ours to receive forgiveness and his grace and aim again for more love, more love. Parenthood is (at least it should be) a journey in laying our lives down for others, for the helpless. May He give you joy and peace as you become less (less limber, less strong, less rested, less able to figure it all out) and may He become much more central, more the strength of your lives and your marriages and your home, as you do together your part to guard and bless and serve these little living ones!
Oh, we couldn't be happier for you right now!
Babies, we can't wait till we'll get to snuggle and cuddle you and hopefully hear some first words from you as you might just be beginning then... We are praying, waiting eagerly for your arrivals!
With joyful love and gratefulness for your precious lives,
Uncle Matt, Auntie Jill and cousins Isaiah, Marian, John and Vivian
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