For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. – Ephesians 2:10

“Four weeks, four years or forty – still our little girl.”

Very early in the morning, on this date back in 1984, Rebekah and I drove down Pensacola’s Bayou Boulevard toward Sacred Heart Hospital with child number two on the way. I say Child Number Two because we did not know the gender and, consequently, the name of the coming baby. We just knew that somebody’s birthday was imminent.

We had been taken a little by surprise due to the fact that Andrew (1982) had arrived almost a month late and this birth was three weeks early. So essentially a seven week difference.

We were in a daze. Then, just as we hit the light at 9th Avenue, Rebekah woke up. “Oh,” she said, “now I remember how this is going to go. Take me home, I’ve changed my mind!”

The baby, however, had other plans. And so with the help of Dr. Couch (an elder at the First Presbyterian Church), and a veritable bevy of Catholic nuns and Presbyterian nurses, Naomi Rebekah came into this world on August 22nd, 1984, at around 7:30 AM. I have to tell you, she took our breath away.

Yes, every baby is beautiful. But this one shone with a light and a radiance that no amount of imagination or expectation or belief could have prepared us for. And we knew in an instant that, like whoever first pulled the Koh-i-Noor diamond out of the earth in India, we had something beyond special on our hands, and that – most likely – we were in over our heads.

Fact is we had to place Naomi in God’s hands because, other than providing a home where we loved and nurtured and taught her all that we could, we soon understood the rhetorical question posed by Rodgers and Hammerstein in “The Sound of Music,” “How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?”

The Heart of God:

Being Naomi’s parents has taught us more about the heart of God than we could possibly have known otherwise, or ever aspired to know. So it is interesting that this week in my men’s Bible study we are talking about the slippery subject of free will. Or, as God phrased it in Genesis 3, “The human being has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.”

How many times have I – have we – talked with God and asked for a temporary suspension of free will?!! “Just pull that lever and we can take it from here,” I have told God more than once. “We will let you know when we’re done… maybe!”

God of course laughs, not unkindly, and so we watch this combination of life and possibility shine with inordinate luminosity, and bubble with effervescence, and create with joy, and love with enthusiasm.

There has always been an ebullience to Naomi that still runs rampant at times.

My “Happy Birthday” Prayer:

This then is my 40th birthday post for our daughter, who has been blessed so deeply with the beauty, the creative talent and the capacity of heart to bring all of this light and life and love into her forties.

Naomi’s rare arsenal of gifts, combined with her precious family opens up a world of possibility. The following prayer is one that I offer to God with all of my heart.

Dear God, imaginative Creator who has consistently reimagined and outdone all of our desires and expectations over the years, once again we find ourselves handing our daughter over to you. Please bless this new decade of her life with more of your presence, with an extra portion of belief, with such light that she cannot help but see beauty and possibility with your kind of clarity, and with love that she cannot contain, love that spills out all over everyone around her. Bless her and bless Craig with the peace that is beyond human understanding, and may your love fill and guide their children – David, Beks and Geoffrey – through this important decade. We ask with confidence and in the name of Jesus, who walks with us and guides us and loves us with an everlasting love. Amen