Dearest Abigail,

You were born the day after the Feast of Tabernacles was completed, which is a Jewish holiday called Shemini Atzeret.

The reason for this holiday is as follows: Shemini Atzeret literally means “the assembly of the eighth (day).” Rabbinic literature explains the holiday this way: our Creator is like a host, who invites us as visitors for a limited time, but when the time comes for us to leave, He has enjoyed himself so much that He asks us to stay another day. Another related explanation: Sukkot is a holiday intended for all of mankind, but when Sukkot is over, the Creator invites the Jewish people to stay for an extra day, for a more intimate celebration. 

Indeed. A more intimate celebration. An extra day of celebration after an entire week of feasting. Many people say that the Feast of Tabernacles is a shadow of things to come, a picture of the Great Harvest at the end of times and of the return of Messiah Himself.

Your father and I treasure these “holy days” and enjoy soaking in their eternal significance. We also love the knowledge that comes with our Christian faith that in having children, we are co-creating with God Himself. Perhaps that is why God, in His infinite wisdom, chose you to be born when you were. Because we have enjoyed ourselves so much being parents to your two sisters that we couldn’t wait to have an additional little girl – You. That as the Jewish people celebrate their extra day of intimate celebration with God, we received you into our lives – you who are an intimate expression of God’s love and tender mercies towards us.

You were born one week before your due date, just like your sister Chesed. Although, you decided you wanted to gestationally beat her by 7 hours and 3 ounces 🙂

The day you were born, I wrote you a letter in my journal. It is the first time I have written you a letter. Perhaps I knew you were coming that day. Something about a mother’s intuition. It was something like this:

Dear Abigail, I am staring at your bassinet with your beautiful pink blanket inside that bears your name. It seems eager to hold you and I admit that I am eager to hold you not in my womb but now in my arms. I know that I cannot decide when you will be born, but want you to know I can’t wait to meet you and hold you. Your Daddy and sisters feel the same way. So come join us anytime, okay? I love you!! your Mommy.

Simple little note. But just like your sisters, who seemed to respond to our words of desire to have them come out and meet us, so you complied with my request and I started labor only an hour after the note was written. You were ready to join our family as well, weren’t you?

At 3pm, my contractions began and were every 3-5 minutes. They weren’t extremely painful and I wasn’t sure if this was “it.” However, I knew how fast Kes came into the world and so I called my midwives and birth assistant immediately. They headed to the house, only to watch me like a boiling pot. I was instructed to do a brisk walk in the neighborhood to see if my contractions would speed up. This is fine and all had I not already run 3 miles that day and had it not been raining and 40 degrees outside. Daddy and sisters insisted on going with me and crying the whole way (as it was raining).

I didn’t do well under that pressure and labor fizzled out within an hour or two (or so it seemed). I asked them to go home and Jennifer, the midwife who caught you, assured me that labor would likely start when I put your sisters to bed. “You’re able to relax then,” she assured me. “Yes,” I thought, “So then I have to start contracting?!” Very ironic. But, just like she said, at 8pm sharp, the real contractions started and didn’t stop until you were born at 3:10am the following morning.

From 8pm until 1am I labored and grew more and more tired. After all, I am used to going to bed around 10pm these days. I lay in bed for the first few hours, but when contractions spaced out, my midwives sent me to walk downstairs for awhile. i did this for an hour and while my contractions became closer together and stronger, I became more and more tired.

I went upstairs to rest some and realized that I had already been laboring for 5 hours and was ready to be done, simply because of the time of night. So I said a prayer. I have been praying lately for very specific things and right then I needed one. In the quiet of my bedrooom alone with God, I prayed “Lord, please do something RIGHT NOW to speed this labor up – so that Abigail can be born VERY SOON. I don’t have much energy left.” And then the miraculous happened (or at least that is what it was for me!) Suddenly, literally as the words of my prayer left my mouth, I heard a loud “pop” and my water broke. It was as though God Himself popped my bag of waters and said “here you go! one baby – coming right up!”

Immediately my labor picked up speed and shortly I was in transition. A little before 3am I started pushing but it was much more painful than with your sisters. i wondered what was going on exactly. Turns out, you were a compound presentation, which means that you had your cute little hand right next to your head while you were coming out. My midwife, Jennifer, was an incredible help in guiding my pushing to gently ease you out. She kept me from tearing (which is a miracle in this situation) by giving your shoulders a “nice big hug” as they were coming out.

I heard you cry. I knew that I was finished and that you were here. What a moment, Abigail. Is there really anything like it? I think the angels in heaven are silent and stop for a moment to watch when a baby is born…it is a pure miracle. You are a pure miracle.

And so I held you tight – your wet, slippery, squirmy little (yet long!) body, counted your fingers and toes, and cried – partly because of sheer relief to be done with labor and mainly because I was now holding you in my arms.

And we named you. We pray with each of our children that God will give us a name for each of you that will speak to your destiny in Him. And you are Abigail Charis Thomas.

Abigail – the meaning is “Father’s joy” – you are our third daughter, and yet your Daddy made it abundantly clear that he would rather have you than 10 boys and wanted your name to reflect his delight. But you are also our Heavenly Father’s joy. God delights over you and smiles to watch you live your life, my dear, each and every day.

Abigail in the Bible was described as “…discerning and beautiful” and by herself as “…a servant to wash the feet of the servants of The Lord.” (see 1 Samuel 25:3 and 41). I believe these words will describe you as well, my little girl.

Charis is a beautiful Greek word that means “grace and favor.”  Charis causes rejoicing. It is the word for God’s grace as extended to sinful man. It signifies unmerited favor, undeserved blessing, a free gift.  What a gift you are, my dear. I pray that you would be a gift to The Lord and to this world, radiating joy and love to all you meet.

I can’t wait to have a front row seat to watch the journey of your life unfold. But for now, I am content to hold you, nurse you, watch you smile and wiggle and cry and coo, knowing that the season where you grasp my pinky with your whole little hand is but a breath that will pass like a morning mist – I will close my eyes and open them and soon you will be a running, playing, talking, happy toddler.

But today you are my baby Abigail and I love you with all of my heart.

forever love,

your Mommy

He may delay because it would not be safe to give us at once what we ask: we are not ready for it. To give ere we could truly receive, would be to destroy the very heart and hope of prayer, to cease to be our Father. The delay itself may work to bring us nearer to our help, to increase the desire, perfect the prayer, and ripen the receptive condition.- George Macdonald

Teach us, O Lord, the disciplines of patience, for to wait is often harder than to work. – Peter Marshall

I am currently 37.5 weeks into my third pregnancy with my third daughter. I feel amazing and sometimes feel like slapping my face in the morning or something because I am so happy. As any pregnant woman, I have had some hiccups in the pregnancy, (nausea in the first trimester and a bad bout of eczema in the second) but overall I can honestly say this has been my smoothest and best pregnancy yet! In the last week or so, I have begun to “nest” which means that the house must be clean (there is nothing so satisfying to a pregnant mom than a very clean and organized house!! ok, well, this pregnant mom, anyways.) I have thought about this little girl inside of me, prayed for her, visualized her birth (which will be fulfilling a long time dream of mine to give birth at home), and talked about how this little girl is going to change our family forever with her beauty, grace, and smile.

Whether or not you have gone through pregnancy yourself, you must know that it is a time full of anticipation. I remember when I was pregnant with Grace, I read every book I could get my hands on and diligently avoided any sort of substance that could possibly harm her while she was in utero. Lunch meat, sushi, and medicine of any kind was off limits. Oh, and my beloved favorite morning latte was exchanged for decaf. Joel and I attended Bradley Method Childbirth classes to educate us and make us aware of how I should prepare my mind and body for the time when labor and birth would come. I loved the class so much that I am now a teacher myself. Like every pregnant woman, I heard horror stories of women who labored for days on end and had excruciating experiences. They scared me to death and I often found myself having to work through fears of what my own labor experience would be like. After a few of these stories, I got smart and started blocking my ears to these negative messages of all the bad things that could happen.

As prepared as I had made myself for birth, nothing could truly prepare me for the day when my water broke over 4 weeks early and my birth plan had to be altered from a home birth to a hospital birth in a matter of an hour. I simply wasn’t ready for her to come, but she came anyways! With Chesed (my second daughter), i found myself wishing that she would arrive early like Grace did – simply because I got so anxious and uncomfortable in my last month. I was so ready for her to arrive that I felt like I was going crazy! But, as with every birth, I couldn’t determine when she would come and she blessed me by arriving one week early. This time around, i find myself much less anxious about it all. I am not anxious for her to come today, nor am I afraid if she does. I am simply expectant for her arrival, whenever God has determined that will be. It frees me to enjoy every day as it comes.

You may not have a child or know what it is like to go though a pregnancy or a birth. But you do know what it is like to wait for something you really, really want. Maybe its the “perfect job” or a husband or wife. Maybe it is for a loved one to arrive home safe from service in the military abroad or to come through a major surgery. Not all waiting is marked with such a high level of anticipation. Waiting is something we all must experience every day. Whether it is waiting in line for your coffee or waiting for traffic to move forward, we must all wait. The question is: What kind of a waiter will you be? An expectant one or an anxious one? The definition of “expectant” is simply “one who is looking forward to something.” The definition of anxious, on the other hand is “Experiencing worry, unease, or nervousness, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.” They are entirely different postures of the mind or heart. One is positive and one is negative and we have the choice every day about whether we will embrace one or the other.

The Bible says that God loves and looks for those who are expectant for Him to move. Psalm 14:2 in the Message version reads, “GOD sticks his head out of heaven. He looks around. He’s looking for someone not stupid— one man, even, God-expectant, just one God-ready woman.” He not only is eagerly watching for those who are waiting expectantly for Him to move, He also directly tells us not to worry (0r be anxious) about anything. However, if you are human, you will worry! God prescribes prayer as the remedy for our anxieties in Philippians 4:6-7 “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.⁷ Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” 

What are you worried or anxious about today, child of God? your Father knows all of your needs, all of your desires, all of your cares before you even tell Him about them. But He wants you to tell Him anyways! To cast every care into His loving, fatherly arms and to leave them there. And then, with all the heavy weights and worries gone, to embrace an expectation of what God wants to and will do in your current circumstances. To pray with faith towards that which is unseen by man, but already determined by God.