The Wonder of 4

This year our daughter, born on September 4, 2004, turned 4! That’s a lot of fours! But, there is another 4 that makes this little girl very special.

We waited nearly 4 years for her to enter our family. Circumstances set in place by God and man gave us a time frame we never expected. Two back-to-back military deployments with a 2nd trimester miscarriage as well caused what I had truly believed would take only months to become years.

Many of you have followed my Quiverfull posts and know the agony I felt and the lessons I learned during this season of waiting. Pride gave way to discontentment gave way to anger gave way to desperation gave way to complete surrender to the Lord. From that surrender came “God’s Sweet Promise” ~ our Melia Alyse.

She made her appearance “sunny-side-up” on Labor Day weekend and has been a ray of sunshine in our lives ever since. A few days after she was born, a dear friend came to visit and bring food. As she approached the bassinet and leaned in to touch our little one, she whispered ever-so-gently, “You have no idea how much your mama and daddy wanted you.”

She was right. That peacefully sleeping child had no idea all that had transpired the past 4 years. And honestly, in her birth, the agony of not carrying a child to term melted for us as well. Here was what I had begged the Lord for. He had heard my cries and in His own timing had knit her together in my womb.

Each of my children are special in their own way. Each has a story that, as they age, I will share more and more of with them. They truly are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

But, Psalm 139 is not just some sweet little passage of Scripture that looks great on a baby shower card. The beginning of the Psalm speaks of a God who knows every single intricate detail of our lives from beginning to end. In fact, there is nowhere we can go to hide from Him. But, this is a good thing because when we feel as though the darkness is going to swallow us whole, He is there. Darkness does not exist in the Lord’s presence.

I feared this little girl who is now 4 would never live this side of Heaven. I was confidant I would lose her just like I had lost her sibling before her. I lived in a dark, dark world for many months. But, the next verses of Psalm 139 speak of a Lord who controls even the darkness of the womb. He weaves and forms that which we cannot see and do not fully understand. He sees the children some of us never get to see. He knew Melia would be born with a herniated umbilical just as He knew Emily would be formed with malrotation. In fact, He was the one who formed each of them this way. It was no mistake that Melia’s hernia healed on its own while Emily’s malrotation eventually led to her death. Listen to the words of verse 16:

And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.

In those 4 long years of waiting, the Lord was not forsaking me. He was choosing the perfect timing to hand us the next addition, the perfect addition, for our family. It is not a mistake that she (or any of her siblings for that matter) were born into our particular and specific family. So, this little girl who turned 4 this past Thursday continues to serve as a blessed reminder that the Lord’s works truly are wonderful!