Sunday, August 3, 2008

at 18 weeks...it's a GIRL!!!

I just wanted to share an excerpt from an email that I sent to people I work with detailing an experience that I had. I couldn't be too bold in how my faith was responsible for the extraordinary night when I shared with them. I've never felt so moved by the Holy Spirit and had such clarity of how precious our salvation through Jesus Christ is.


"My wife and I found out that we were going to be having a baby back in May. This past week, Thursday to be exact, we found out that our baby was more specifically a baby girl. Every man that grows up playing baseball dreams of teaching his little boy how to throw, but I know that a little girl's first love is her daddy. As Sara and I found out the news on Thursday I couldn't help but visualize how my daughter is going to think that her daddy hung the moon. However, being a thinker I quickly started becoming overwhelmed with the reality that a sweet, innocent baby girl is going to be relying on me for everything. Everything. It freaked me out.

Sara kept asking me what was wrong. Was I disappointed that baby is a girl and not a boy? Absolutely not. Todd at ET asked me on Saturday if I was okay because he could tell that I was much more quiet than normal. The people around me knew that something was heavy on my mind.

Tonight we returned home about 11:45 from sharing the news that our baby was going to be Gabriella Grace Deel instead of Micah Stephen Deel with family. At 12am, we laid down to sleep. At 12:15am I could tell that I was not falling asleep anytime soon. At 12:20am, I reached past my Supernovas and put on my Pegasus, my brand new Pegasus that I did not want to get dirty, and I went for a run. Something amazing happened.

During the first mile, I didn't notice any pain in my knee. My mind was free from dealing with the physical pain and instead focused on the beautiful miracle of the circle of life. During the second mile, I forgot that I had ever had any hip pain and instead envisioned the smell of my daughter's head when I kiss it right after her first bath. The way I'll feel the first time I make her smile. How I'll fall asleep holding her in a rocking chair in the middle of the night and wake up with her sleeping in my arms. Whether her nickname will be Gabbi, Ella, Brie, or if I'll always call her Gabriella. Whether she'll be spazzy and energetic like her dad or if she'll be focused and graceful like her mommy. Whether she'll have big cheek bones like her mom or if she'll have bushy eyebrows like her daddy.

At this point, I was hitting mile seven. The longest I'd ever run up to this point in my life was 4 miles. As I was running the last mile, I thought about what I want to be known as to my daughter. When she thinks of God fearing, strength, integrity, compassion, kindness, boldness, humbleness, dignity, sacrificing, and a passion for life; I want her to think of her dad.

During the eight miles I ran in the early hours of today I was able to marvel in the splendor of the baby girl my wife will give birth to in late December. The three days prior to that I was a nervous, anxious wreck. Now, after time in prayer, time with family, the hour in my Pegasus and the subsequent endorphins; that energy is being translated into passion for and about life."

thanks for reading

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