My dear Joseph David,

Six days ago you entered the world and stole my heart forever. How can a mother of three girls prepare for having a son?

Layers of pink dresses, ladybugs, craft projects and dolls adorn our home and rightly so. But we’ve fixed up your room with trucks and campfires, bears and fish and all things “Great Outdoors.”

You arrived on a Friday, just before the Shabbat sundown. As Jews around the world lit their candles and welcomed the rest of God, I embraced you and rested from a long but super speedy labor.

Let me explain. Thursday night the pains began. The waiting commenced. With fits and starts and putsing around, I chatted with midwives and walked my neighborhood with your Daddy, hoping you would make your appearance. Contractions started. Stopped. Started. Stopped.

I endured a night of restless sleep, awakened by contractions that then stopped again and again.

In the morning, my birth team left. I needed space to labor. I needed space to think. I took a nap and went on a long walk alone with God. I told Him that I was ready for you to come, but I felt peace and contentment in the moment, knowing that waiting was productive – waiting would bring me YOU – at the time YOU wanted to be born.

I came home and shortly after, you decided it was time. Labor went from a walk to a sprint and in two hours of intense contractions and three pushes, you were born – gliding gracefully into the water of my birthing tub and directly into my arms.

I scooped you up and brought you to my chest. Your sisters arrived just in time to see you pulled out of the water. “He’s here!” I said. “Joseph is here!”

Joseph David – what is in your name, my son? For seven years we have carried your name. For seven years we have known somehow that we wanted you – needed you in our family.

Joseph means “He will add.” God has added to our family a little boy. He has added a brother to your sisters. He has given your father and me a son. And I believe that the world has been given a great treasure.

We named you Joseph because we believe that you are called to be a man of godly integrity in a world of corruption and compromise. We believe that, just like your namesake in the Bible, you are going to be a dreamer and a doer.

And we promise to believe in the dreams that God gives you, even when, at times, we may not understand them.

As you prepared to enter the world, your Daddy read the words and admonitions of Proverbs over you. “My son, listen to my instruction, that the years of your life may be many….Fear The Lord and depart from evil…Let your heart hold fast to my words. Keep my commandments and live.”

We pray that, like your namesake, when you are faced with temptation, your response will be “How can I do this thing and sin against God?” He is jealous for your whole heart and I pray that your heart would be His alone.

You will likely be thrown into some pits in this lifetime. Sometimes people won’t like you. Sometimes you will be treated unfairly.

Be it pit or palace, I pray that your response would be trust in God and praise in His name. He has a glorious plan for your life, my son, and I wait with joy to see how that plan will unfold.

May your life come full circle so that one day you will look back upon it and say, even of the hard times, “What had been intended towards me for evil, God has used it for good.”

May the face of our God shine upon you. May you delight in the joy of His friendship and the shelter of His almighty arms.

May He preserve, protect, and defend you and may you cling to Him all the days of your life.

I look forward to watching you grow. I look forward to playing in the mud with you and learning what it looks like to mother a son – to mother you. I look forward to walking with you, cheering you on through life’s highs and the lows.

I love you forever and you will always be my beloved son, Joseph David Thomas.

With love,
Your Mommy