Nine years ago tonight...about this very time of night, in fact...I received a phone call that changed my world forever. We had four girls in the family that were due to have babies very soon...a cousin, a daughter, and two daughters-in-law. In fact, one of the daughters-in-law was overdue at that point. It was about 10:30 p.m. on the night of June 25, 2005. The phone rang and I bounded out of bed...a bundle of excitement.
"Ahhhhh! Someone's in labor!" I shouted!
When I got to the phone it was my dad. He told me that my mom was having a problem and that I had better come right away. I told him to dial 9-1-1 and I'd be there in a few minutes. Someone was in labor alright, but this was NOT what I was expecting.
By the time John and I got to my parent's home, my mother was in a bad way. An ambulance came, picked my mother up, and headed for Joplin. In mid-trip, she was transferred to a helicopter, but my mother never even made it to the hospital. She passed from this life in mid-transit shortly after midnight on the 26th. Needless to say, since that time, the 25th of June has always approached with a cloud of darkness hanging over it...especially for my dad.
Well, this year, God, in His infinite mercy and grace, changed all that by giving us a new memory on the 25th of June. This morning, about 4:15 a.m. a beautiful, new granddaughter was born to us...a new great-granddaughter to my dad...and the story is pretty amazing.
Our daughter's due date, June 14th, came and went without event. Every day we've waited, but nothing happened. Last night, a couple of minutes after midnight the call came. Contractions were strong and regular, coming about five minutes apart, and we were needed to come stay with the children.
Less than four hours after leaving for the hospital, Miss Esther Rebecca-Grace Pennington, came into the world. The story of her birth is an amazing one, to say the least. I said earlier that she came about 4:15. The reason I say about is because no one caught the exact time. Miss Esther was born abruptly in the bathroom under very tense circumstances, but, tonight, praise God! Both she and her mommy, are doing very well.
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| Miss Esther Rebecca-Grace Pennington |
My dad has not been well the past few months and he's been particularly weak and feeble the past few weeks. The days leading up to the anniversary of my mother's passing has always been hard from him. I wish you could have heard the spark in his voice when I told him that Miss Esther had been born in the night, during the wee hours of the morning of the 25th of June. He sounded relieved and said, "Well, good! Maybe this date will be a better one now!"
I do feel bad that our daughter had to carry the baby so far past her due date, and I'm sorry that she and the baby had such a rough delivery, but I do praise God for blessing our family with such a special gift on a date that, previously, had carried such an air of darkness and sadness to it in our family's history.
Something else that I found interesting to note...
This afternoon upon returning from taking the grandlittles to the hospital to see their parents and meet their new, baby sister...on the way back to their house, I had to go by our house to grab a few things. While there, our soon-to-be-nine-year-old-granddaughter, Audrey, noticed the date on the "God in the Moment" (from Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts) flip-calendar that sits on the table next to our bed, and that it was still turned to a date back in April.
She said, "Nana, can I change the date on your calendar to today's date?"
I said, "Sure! Go ahead!"
After turning the calendar to today's date and reading it, my granddaughter said, "Oh, Nana! You've got to read this!"
I did. And here is what it said on today's date...the 25th of June...
"I drive out of dark and into morning glory. I push off of shadows and I awaken wide, to the strange truth that all new life comes out of the dark places, and hasn't it always been? Out of darkness, God spoke forth the teeming life. All new life labors out of the womb of darkness."
Wow. Somehow, in the moment that I read that, I felt that we had come full circle...that, somehow, right in that moment that we had passed from death unto life...from out of darkness into His glorious light!
Until next time...
All My Love,
~Rebecca
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| Our son-in-law, Patrick, and he and our daughter's four beautiful children. |
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| My husband holding Miss Esther for the first time |
