“Jesus loves me. This I know.”

When Bryan and I began the blog, the vision for what our writing would be was, admittedly, fairly superficial. I thought that my journaling would constitute the majority of the blog and would consist of emotional notations of the baby’s development and our excitement for his arrival. I thought that Bryan would suffer through the process because it was important to me, and he would come up with sarcastic entries about various subjects having to do with pregnancy, babies, and having children. While I do not believe that we have strayed entirely from who we are as writers and/or what our initial inclinations were for the website — you will still get sarcasm and sentimentality — I recognize that our blog has taken a far more comprehensive, passionate, and global turn.

In the past month, Ayden’s story has been spread throughout major U.S. corporations and in family-owned businesses, from California to Italy to Jordan and from New York to Florida, among small groups in an assortment of churches, across schools, etc. My hope is that you can feel as though you all are intensely part of our baby’s growth, his story in the Master Plan, and that, as the Body of Christ, you would lift up our son’s name in unceasing prayer and with one voice. In one month, I have learned that the Body has great power in Christ’s name; your encouragement with regards to our son has given us strength and made us feel beloved.

Prayer for Ayden has been one of the more difficult processes I have ever had to wrestle. As his mother, one would think that the prayers that I would lift up to my Lord would be obvious, but I feel at a loss for words. I am intensely aware that God knows my desires, and I rest in knowing that the words will come when they are supposed to. In the meantime, I pray for the same two things that I prayed for him before I even knew he existed: I pray that Ayden will know the Lord and that he will be a witness for His Love. Only God can use the life of an unborn child as ministry for a God that loves deeply, and I believe that God has done that with Ayden.

Our pastor reminded us of Jesus’ example in his sermon this morning. He started by referring to twelve-year-old Jesus giving perhaps his first sermon in Luke 2. In this chapter, Mary and Joseph have become separated from their son, and they are understandably worried about his sudden disappearance. When they find him in the temple courts of Jerusalem, they exclaim that they have been frantically searching for him. Jesus responds, “Didn’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business?” (v. 49) At twelve, he could comprehend the relationship He had to the Father and the job that He had to complete with the remainder of His life.

Since I started back to teaching this past week, I have spent more time thinking about the ministry of children. Since the beginning of my pregnancy, my past and present students and cheerleaders have loved on the baby and me in a very uninhibited way. They have written me notes and emails, made posters, given the baby books (some purchased and some from their own dearly-loved libraries); they have created websites with Ayden’s story; they have circled around their computers at home with friends and family, read the blog, and then shared in our tears; they have joined hands in Bible studies and presented Ayden to their Lord; they have spread the word to others so that still more can be in prayer.

One of my closest friends has five and six-year-old boys. She reminded me recently that there is something amazing about prayer from the mouths of babes. Indeed, those two little boys prayed for Bryan and me to have a baby, and then they sang praises when they heard of our pregnancy. Now they pray for the baby’s heart.

Jesus charges us to be like children in our relationship to Him (Matthew18: 2-3; Mark 10:14-16). My students at school and my friend’s children remind me of what it means to believe with childlike faith. Their humble and sincere hearts for God manifest themselves in their actions towards others (towards us). They are "about (their) Father's business" as witnesses of God’s love, just as I want our Ayden to be.
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Prayer Request: In the last months of pregnancy, Bryan and I will have a number of doctor’s appointments. We pray that all other baby developments continue as normal. We pray that the doctors will acquire all of the information necessary to act wisely when Ayden is born. We hope that that the blog entries that you will read up until delivery have little news of doctor’s visits.

Other Information at 25 weeks: My innie belly button is becoming not so innie. - I feel like a rolly polly when I get up out of chairs. - People can now recognize that I am pregnant. - Baby registering is a ridiculous process, especially if you are a tad bit matchy matchy, picky, and obsessive compulsive. - Ayden is now doing flips in my stomach, and I still think that sharing his acrobatics with Bryan has been one of my favorite parts about being pregnant. - I still don’t have an OB. - I used to think acid reflux was make believe; yeah, um, it’s not. – What is the secret to finding a good position for sleeping???