Well I have 3 days left until I have this child, I am nervous, not just about the delivery and all the pain and things, but there is something so different about this pregnancy and this child. Our journey with this little girl all started in the fall of 2007, God had placed a burden on me and Josh’s heart to create a Nation, to no longer get in the way / controling the size of our family. He told us to lay this at his feet, to trust him in it fully, and he would provide and do amazing things through our faith and obedience in him. Well after MUCH prayer and much confirmation and lots encouragement we stepped into this call. A month later, in November we conceived Annikka. There has been SOOOO much spiritual warfare surrounding this child, as well as so much refining in Josh and I, leading to brokenness and a surrendering to the Lord of so many things that had been in the way, holding us down, things that were standing between us and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Soon after we stepped into this call he started telling us to do something even more crazy, to let go of our family and our church in Tennessee, he told us that he is leading us to a new season that will be better then the season before, if we will trust him. I mourned over this for months, not about leaving the church (my heart had checked out a long time ago), but about all the close friends that i love dearly. Just like before , with much prayer and LOTS of confirmation, we let go, my last Sunday was Easter Sunday, interesting.

SO much has happened since that Easter Sunday, more then i could ever write down, and i am sure much more then I am even aware of myself. It has been like walking into a great heavenly feast, I guess you don’t realize how starved and thirsty you have been until you eat and drink your fill of the fullness of the Lord.

With all of this going on I hardly even realized I was pregnant, crazy enough, I have had little or no discomfort through the entire pregnancy, seriously! Josh’s Mom said that she thinks it is the Lord’s love and mercy on me for my obedience, maybe it is cause it is nothing I have done.

Only a month or so later, late spring, God started to reveal more about this child, he gave us her name! Josh and I were up late one night talking and out of the blue we started to discuss what we should name this child, Josh had about 3 different names he favored and i had about the same. Josh really really felt led to the Hebrew name Annikka, meaning Grace, because of all the amazing Grace that the Lord has showered us with recently. Then we started talking about this new season he is leading us into, and how it has been all about being broken of our selfishness and surrendering it to the Lord. Truly being taught what it means to pick up your cross and fallow Christ, to be a disciple of Christ, and to leave our old self behind, to be born again. “The Grace To Be Born Again,” I just kept hearing that ringing in my mind as we were talking, Then a memory of my real Dad once telling me that my middle name Renee means born again popped into my head, so I ran to this name book I had and looked it up. Sure enough Renee means To be born again, there it is, her name, Annikka Renee, a marker of what the Lord is doing in our family and the promise that he will complete this work in us.

We were overwhelmed and still are. So I wait for her arrival in three days, excited yet nervous, what will she be like, what will the Lord do in her life as she grows to know Him, what will he teach us through her? I am ever so greatful, and i will never understand God’s loving grace that he would choose us for anything. I am humbled to my face yet my feet feel as if they are off the ground, there is something so special happening and i just can’t wait to see it all!

~C