Introducing...Penelope Mae!

Most of you should know by now that we are expecting our second baby girl! My heart swells when I think of all that we are excited about and how good God has been. We hoped to have our kids close together in age, and our little Penelope should arrive a few weeks before Sophia's second birthday. I cannot wait to meet this little girl and wonder what she'll be like. All I know so far is Sophia, but I keep reminding myself that God has fashioned an entirely new body, soul, personality, life! What will she be like? I can't wait to get to know her!

And I admit, I am both excited and anxious about how Sophia will respond. She loves touching my belly and saying, "baby!" but will she feel the same way when Penny is not in my belly anymore and moves into her old room? :) I see her love for babies and think she will be the best big sister in the world and she will love Penelope from the minute she sees her. A beautiful relationship will begin that will last a lifetime. And then I will be cooking and Sophie is clutching my legs, wailing that I'm not giving her my 100% attention and I think, "oh Lord, how is this going to work?!"

When I was pregnant with Sophia, I had daydreams about our perfect family and this sweet perfect baby and how my days would be filled with songs and the sound of her giggles and "I love you"s. And to be honest, those moments come, often, and they are beautiful and precious! But so do the cries, the tantrums, the missed naps, the thrown food. I know in experience now what I only knew as theological truth before. And that is this: raising kids is a messy business. All of life is a messy business. It has been since Genesis chapter 3. Did I think my kids would be any different? Did I think I would somehow instantaneously and miraculously become patient, gracious, peace-filled? The past 20 months have shown me in real life what I have long believed in theory: I am a sinner. And so is everyone else.

Yet, if it is possible, we are even more excited to have our baby. We had only ideas about what having children would be like before we had Sophia. We wait with anticipation now with a sense of reality. Yes, it will be hard. We have done hard. Yes, it will be tiring. We have been tired. But...it will be beautiful in a way we only know from having raised a child already. It will be rewarding beyond understanding to raise another little girl. We know this, because we are raising one now and it is better than all my perfect daydreams. If anything, the tantrums make the "I love you" even more miraculous.

Will Sophia get jealous and act out? Probably. Will Penelope cry and give us sleepless nights? Yes. Will the girls fight with each other? Inevitably. But I look past those moments, to the eternal perspective of their lives in the greater scheme of God's will. Our job is a big one: the shepherding of our girls' hearts into the Kingdom of God. It is messy, but it is what we were put here to do. And it feels so right to do what God has planned for you. This is what he's planned for us- the raising of two daughters. We know the cost. We also know the reward, and it is priceless.