Happy Birthday my dear Azzi! God brought you into this world earlier than any of us expected. You arrived 24 days before your due date, but we are so excited to get to spend these three extra weeks with you. Your mother and I ventured into natural child birth with as much practice as we could. Ash read every book she could get her hands on and we enrolled in birthing classes to prepare as much as we could, and it paid off. I cannot tell you how proud I am of your mother. I hope some day you get to experience the joys of natural childbirth. It truly was an experience that is unlike others. I was in awe of the power that God gives women to overcome and fight through the pain. We have been so excited and anticipating your arrival. I know you won’t remember the night but you were born at 1:16 a.m. on June 25, 2009 in Dallas, Texas. You were 6.4 ounces and 18 inches long. You are just so beautiful and full of life. God granted us every prayer of ours in bringing a healthy baby to us. We are so grateful of his grace and mercy. So many people were praying for you today. We truly felt the power behind the saints that joined us in prayer. God is our source of strength and we called upon him and he answered. (Psalm 46:1) I loved being a part of this experience with your mother. I never knew that birth could be such a worshipful experience. From the way that God designed the woman’s body to give birth and the grace that he intertwined all the way through the laboring process. A couple of things reminded me of how God works. During the laboring process, I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to intervene and do something to help your mom. About all I could do was bring her water and a cold wash cloth. That was it. I was left to sit and watch and trust her into God’s hands. I prayed several times that night. I prayed for your breaths, I prayed that we would continue to hear your heart beating, I prayed for Ash. (Job 12:10) I prayed that God would give her grace to surrender to the contractions. I prayed for the midwives that helped us, all I could do really was pray and then wait. That seems to be the way that God works. I’ve seen that God doesn’t want my movement, my rash decisions, but trusting that He will work, He will move, He will provide. God wants to be the one that receives the glory, the one that is seen as the provider and source of life, because He is. (Psalm 51:16-17)
Your mother and I prayed for you, that you would come to us, that God would grant you life, and He chose to. He has great purpose for your life Azzi, purpose to bring about His glory. Natural Labor is a process of truly placing everything in the Lord’s hands. I know this is what he wants from your life. Complete trust, complete surrender to God’s sovereign plan for your life. (Ephesians 2:10) The Lord knows you better than I will or could. He is the source of the breath you take and the purpose for why you are here. Nothing in this life, no man, no career, no possession, no talent, nothing will bring about true joy outside of Christ. One thing you must know, you must see, you must believe is that you are in need of a savior. Ever since the fall of man, when sin entered the world we started to replace God’s timing with our timing, God’s decisions with our decisions, God’s plans for our plans, our ways for his ways. If you haven’t felt it yet, seen it, and experience it, our world is fractured, we are all full of sin and in need of a savior. Just like your father and mother, you have a wicked heart and are in desperate need of someone to save you from it. (Jeremiah 17:9) That is the beauty of the gospel. That is the beauty of Jesus. God gave up his son, so that you and I could have life, true abundant, meaningful life. (John 10:10) Someone had to take our place. Sin is so horrible ,so wicked, someone had to die for it. Azzi, someone died for you, someone stepped out of the heavens and sacrificed the ultimate sacrifice for you and I and that was Jesus. The one who gave you your very breath, even the breath you are breathing right now, died for you. The Creator died for his created. He died the substitionary death on your behalf and mine. There is no greater love than this. Your mother and I will never be able to give you that kind of love. All I can do is direct you to him, tell you about him, and raise you in the environment where he is praised. Jesus is the sweetest thing you will ever utter, he is the ultimate thing to experience, know and feel in this life.
Azzi, you are God’s child, not mine. He has complete ownership over you. Your mother and I pray that our lives will be a resemblance of this truth. There is only one thing that I plead from you. Surrender. Surrender your will, your life, your passion, your sin to him. He has incredible depths to show you that won’t end here on earth, but continue forever into eternity. He will satisfy your soul, he will bring about the joy that you are seeking. (Ephesians 3:14-20) I pray every thing we do, every step of discipline we take, every act of love and every work of encouragement will all be at the back drop of the gospel, all at the mercy and grace of our sovereign God. Azzi you are loved by your Creator, he has known you before you were. His love for you is limitless and beautiful. I pray the Lord gives you faith to believe and faith to continue in future grace. (Romans 4:1-5) I look forward to getting to see all the grace our heavenly father has for you in this life.
I love you more than you know.
Dad
