Mila Evangeline

My beautiful girl is here! She is a bigger blessing than I could have imagined. I'm so enjoying nuzzling her soft sweetness. My heart is overflowing with love and joy, despite the fact that I have more responsibility now than I know how to handle.

Unless the LORD builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the LORD guards the city,
The watchman keeps awake in vain.
² It is vain for you to rise up early,
To retire late,
To eat the bread of painful labors;
For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.
 ³ Behold, children are a gift of the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
⁴ Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
⁵ How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.
-Psalm 127

 It is a blessing to know that just as she was a generous gift from God, He will also take care of us, even when I am too weak. So instead of thinking about all the things that I can't do, I'm just going to rest and know that God is my help.

Sleep in safety and peace, sweet girl. God has got you.

Waiting

Surprised Again: Proof That Our God is Not Small

So as everyone who knows me, or has seen me lately knows, I am pregnant with our third child! Marvelous, mysterious grace of God!  

He makes the barren woman abide in the house As a joyful mother of children. Praise the LORD! Psalm 113:9

We know we are expecting a daughter in a little less than 10 weeks time. Here is a note I wrote for facebook to announce our choice of her name:


So we've finally decided on a name for our daughter.  We like to name our children based on the meaning of the name, which can be challenging. There are so many names that are beautiful that don't have a meaning we like and names with wonderful meanings that are just impossibly ugly.

After talking about what we wanted this baby's name to mean we kept coming back to the idea of abundance or overwhelming fullness. As most of you know, we aren't supposed to be able to have children, and Iain was adopted as an embryo. His birth was the result of many tears, prayer, pain and money. But God remembered us, and a healthy boy was born! Elinor was a surprise after 6 years of infertility and we thought: God is good. Look how he has turned our sadness into joy. But little did we know that God planned to do more than we could ever ask or think, and we found ourselves expecting our third child. This verse kept popping into my mind:

"Surely your waste and your desolate places
   and your devastated land—
surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants,
   and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
 The children of your bereavement
   will yet say in your ears:
'The place is too narrow for me;
   make room for me to dwell in.'
Then you will say in your heart:
   'Who has borne me these?
 I was bereaved and barren,
   exiled and put away,
   but who has brought up these?
Behold, I was left alone;
   from where have these come?'"
Isaiah 49:19-21

We laughed in disbelief over Elinor's birth, we struggle to process the overwhelming gift of this new child. We feel stretched thin and inadequate to hold this gift in so many ways. And we feel deeply blessed that the Lord would deem it good to give us a new baby. Truly we can say:

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21

So we began searching for names that meant abundant, full or rich. We came across Horeb (horrible!) and Revayah (revile?). Then we came across this psalm:

  Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
         So are the children of one's youth.
   How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
         They will not be ashamed
         When they speak with their enemies in the gate. Psalm 127:4-5

How fitting that this psalm out of any of the other instances of the words full or abundant would be the instance of the word full that prove to be our baby's name. The Hebrew word is melah. We are naming our third child:

Mila Evangeline Douglas
"The Lord has filled me with his good news"

"The angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people..." Luke 2:10

We look forward to meeting Mila (pronounced with a long e sound, meelah) in person somewhere around August 11, 2011.

"You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
         You have anointed my head with oil;
         My cup overflows.
    Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
         And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." Psalm 23:56-6