Friday Flashbacks: Amelia is One

First, happy birthday to my husband Brad! I can't wait to celebrate with you this weekend!   Brad, like Amelia, was born on Easter Day (in the year that they were born.)  They were meant to be father and daughter, and meant to represent new birth and resurrection!

Amelia turned two this week. This post, which I published on her first birthday, is one of my all-time favorites.  We hadn't been home from Uganda long and I was filled with such gratitude to be past the pain of waiting and uncertainty and finally have my baby girl with me.

Twelve months ago today, sweet Amelia left the darkness of the womb to meet the promise of sunlight streaming through the open windows of a Ugandan birthing clinic. It would take nine hours for that same sun to shine upon our part of the globe.  Had I known then what splendor the sun had just witnessed in Africa, I might have bathed in its sweet warm rays all day.

How remarkable – that God performs miracles like that… like beloved long-hoped-for-daughters being born… even when we do not know what is happening!  Is He weaving such magnificence all of the time?  What marvel is He creating even now?

What was I doing on the day that our daughter was born?  I was aching and praying for her, I know.  But on Amelia’s birthday, was I joyfully believing that God’s hand was directing all things?  I don’t know.  It is possible I was feeling despair – on the very day that the answer to our prayers was born!

In those days, when the earth would turn its back on the sun, darkness often seeped into my heart and suffocated my hope.  Did the darkness also dishearten our precious daughter?  From the day she was born, she saw the darkness of night 308 times before her parents came to her.  Did God whisper light into her heart?

It is bright today on Amelia’s first birthday.  We are celebrating.  We see the sun.

The sun may have been the only witness to the miracle of Amelia’s birth, but my own eyes are sore with the beauty unfolding before me each day.  Our birthday girl is thriving.  We are amazed by the daughter who came from darkness but lives reflecting His Light – all smiles, all laughter, all kisses and hugs.

What a difference God can make in one year. I have to wonder – what darkness is He turning to light even now?  How different will our lives once again look as Spring buds next year?

Thank God for Amelia… for our birthday girl who reminds me that miracles and beauty are always around the corner… always waiting patiently behind the despair… always ready to bloom in His perfect time.

We love you, birthday girl! This world has been blessed to witness your sweet life for one year. Happy birthday to Amelia.  You have made our family complete!