My Girl

Today, well I guess yesterday now, we celebrated my girl's 4th birthday. I can hardly believe she is 4 now. It seems like just yesterday I was planning for her arrival. and now she is no longer a baby but a beautiful, spirited little girl. I can truly say that the happiest time of my life was when she came into our lives. She was the answer to years of prayer and she did not disappoint!

We started the day by bringing her a breakfast of a blueberry muffin and cup of milk to her while she was still in bed. She lit up as her Daddy and I came into the room singing and got her all set up. She listened patiently as I told her the story of her birth and giggled as I talked about her having non stop hiccups while in my tummy. I reminded her that she is an answer to many prayers and that we had to wait so long for her because Father God was making her extra special.



The rest of the day was full of doing all of her special things. We ran from library time to Toys R Us to Chuck E Cheese back home for a special dinner of noodles with white sauce (which I made from scratch and she decided she likes the icky jar stuff better so she ate a PB&J sandwich instead.) followed up with ice cream from the farm down the road. It was a very busy but fun filled day in which all day I was replaying in my head the 30+ hours of labor I was going through 4 years ago. The crazy thing is that I long for that experience again. That going to the hospital and not sure what is going to happen over the next few hours as you work to give birth. That knowing that all this pain is going to lead to the most incredible experience of my life. Even in those hours of pain and worry, which ultimately ended with an emergency C-section that had me under general anaesthesia and baby out in less than 10 minutes, I knew I was doing this all for baby. I welcomed it all because it was all an answer to prayer. Father God had remembered me and blessed me with Malinda Kristina Franklin.



I love that her birthday will always remind me of how I fell to my knees praising God after seeing those life telling two lines on the pee stick! I will always sing His praises and rehearse to my child (even to her eyes rolling at me as she hears it over and over again) the story of her birth and remind her that she is a walking example of God's love and power! This girl has a purpose in life and I am blessed and challenged to be the one to help her get ready for that purpose. It's not always easy and it's a lot of work but just as I knew that the pain of labor was leading up to something beautiful and there was NOTHING that I wouldn't do to get my baby born i know that all this work of raising her is leading up to a beautiful birth of a woman who, to me will always be my apple cheeked chatterbox, but to the world will be a beautiful powerful woman of God's Purpose!

Keep your eye on the prize, Amy, your in for a long ride of labor but in the end it will be a memory you will long for!