It's A...

It's a girl! I have been so excited to share this news ever since we found out! I've wanted to blurt it out to every person I pass by! I am thrilled to be having a little girl...to dress her up and do her hair. To share in tea parties together, to play dolls and dress up. I can hardly wait for all the wonderful adventures to begin! 

Almost as much as announcing that we are having a girl, have I wanted to announce her name. Alana Faye. It really is true, you shouldn't name a thing you don't plan to be attached to (it's why in every animal movie in which the pet is rescued off the streets the parents beg the child not to name it, because once you do, it becomes infinitely more dear and impossible to then be separated). Almost the instant we knew it was a girl, and knew what her name was to be, my heart swelled with so much love for this little one, it spilled out in joy and excitement. 

Hers was a name we picked out when we first got married, almost five years before. Alana means "little seed" or "little rock". Faye means "faith". She is a little seed of faith. Her name fits so well into our story, I was amazed and awed at God's timing and plan behind something seemingly so simple as a name. 

After all we have walked through; after every trial, every pain and hardship, she has come into our lives at such a time as this. She is a reminder, a call to trust. This past year has been the hardest of my life. My faith was tested and pulled; it was stretched to limits I hadn't known before. It was challenged not by people, not by the unbeliever trying to disprove my faith, but by life's circumstances. Every time I faced another unanswered prayer {was God still God}. Every time we encountered another health issue yet unresolved {Did God really have the power to heal}. When loss came into our lives and then came again {was God still good}. As one unknown built upon another, until the future became a thick fog {was God truly Sovereign over all}. As I still walk this path, I can say yes...God is faithful and yes, God is good. Just as a gardener plants a seed into the ground knowing the outcome and the beauty it will produce, though the seed does not understand why it has been thrust into the cold dark earth, nor why it must be broken open for life to spring forth, the Gardener knows. 

And so with ever little "butterfly" motion I feel, with every excited thought of who this little Alana Faye will grow up to be, I am always reminded of her name, it's meaning and the timing in which she has come to us. I cannot wait to hold her and to share this story with her one day.