the gift of a life

Tommorow we celebrate six years of life for Sarah Elizabeth. I decided to post this today since tommorow we will be in the midst of partying! :)
Mark spent some time this week writing and reflecting on her birth and the perspective it brought to our lives and continues to bring....

As I reflect back on the anticipation and arrival of our second child I see the picture of Heather holding her daughter for the first time and tears fill my eyes. After the excitement that came with the birth of Moses came the pain of the tear and the reality of Heather going back to surgery instead of holding her son. Then came a long road to recovery – her being pushed around the city in a wheelchair and us as new parents spending a humiliating week on vacation with my family when she could hardly walk and Moses wouldn’t stop screaming. Those were some hard days in our marriage. As I write these words a song talking about being “marked by heaven” is playing from my iPhone. It is comforting now to hear those words as God confirms his hand. But, it did not feel like heaven was marking us at the time. So the joy of our first born was tempered by real pain and some hard times in our marriage. We learned a lot and she did her best to be strong when her second pregnancy reached it’s third trimester.

My wife is strong – in many different ways – but in a very old school way when it comes to child birth. No meds, no massages, no breathing techniques – she just goes somewhere inside and gets it done. I knew she was strong and I was as confident as I could be that our second delivery would be different, but I was still a bit apprehensive. Kind of like holding your breath when you watch one of your children do something in front of a crowd that you knew they had been practicing for a long time – I was hoping to see exactly what I saw. Sarah was born and Heather left out a sigh of relief. There was no tear, there were no issues. I announced that our baby was a little girl and as I watched Heather weep and reach out for her daughter we knew that Sarah Elizabeth Buckwalter had arrived. And we knew that God had our best in mind.
 

As I reflect on that memory that is the thing that sticks out to me the most. After months of trying to believe that it was going to be okay and trying to be strong and wanting to believe for her hearts desire – she got to hold her daughter and this time there was no rushing off to emergency surgery. There was no handing her child back because she was in too much pain to hold him- no – there was only the joy of holding and knowing that God is who he says he is and that he loves to give good gifts to his children.
 
This brought tears to my eyes and reminded me again that God knows our heart's desires and He is with us on every step of this journey! What made her birth extra special too was we had miscarried in between Moses and Sarah when I was 12 weeks along. That was October 9th. November 17th I took a pregnancy test... and it was postive! There was new life again! What a surprise and what a gift!
 
Happy Birthday Sarah Elizabeth...your life is a gift!