Birth, part 3 God is gracious

It was like I was literally fighting with the flesh.

I was starting to cry, but one second it would be out of joy, and the next I would be fighting against it being from fear.

But the fear never took over, and I just kept waiting.

and thinking how grateful I was for this child.
And praising God for him.

And just like it happens in every melodramatic movie, we finally heard a sound.

It wasn't a cry at all, but a series of squeaks.
Mister SoulFull had to ask what the sound was at first.

But what a precious sound.




and as soon as I finally got to to see that little face, with those eyes big and open ( albeit very blood shot), we knew his name.

We had been planning for this child, male or female, to be named after other people.

One, an uncle, who is not really an uncle at all, but has lived next door to my husband's grandparents since the beginning of time...at least since before the beginning of the Mister's time. In fact, it was this uncle and his wife who were there to watch the Mister when his little brother was born....this Uncle was there waiting on Finch Street when Grandmama and Grandpapa SoulFull brought the Mister's dad home from the hospital....he has watched the children and grandchildren grow up, move away, come back...he even watched and cried and grieved when the Mister's mom died, even though she and Mister's dad had already been divorced for years. He was even there when we had to bring Miss Fi, our beautiful little girl so badly damaged, home from the hospital after her accident.

He loves our family. He never had one of his own, but he could ( and still can be) counted on to look out for ours, long before I was even part of the clan.He is so very shy, that when I first arrived, they had to talk him into coming over to the grandparents' house to meet me. Little old me. But he has welcomed me into the fold, and for a man so very shy, yet so very devoted to those he cares for, that feels like such a privilege.

And so we knew we wanted to honor this special uncle, whether the baby was a boy or girl.

But God had also placed something else on our hearts. A name that meant more to me for the ones who had carried it before, a certain "Beloved" most of all, than for what the name inherently meant.

But the moment this little boy was born.....

and even more the moment he actually breathed his first....

this name was no longer about simply naming him to honor other people...




Because it essentially means Grateful child of God.

The rest of the story