The Expansion of Us

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.    

Ralph Waldo Emerson

And so, my sister, Kendra, and I loaded up my car with kiddos, coffees, books, blankies, toys, snacks, Vampire Weekend, She & Him, the Decemberists and some Paolo Nutini.  We took a day-trip and trekked east 3+ hours to witness God's handwriting in big bold letters.  All underlined half a million times and asterisked and italicised because it's that important.  That beautiful.

And we paid attention, let me tell ya. 

After three years of blues and balls and trains, our sister, Krista, welcomed her third baby, a sweet little girl.  Welcome to the world, Tegan Nyah.  Welcome to pinks and glitter and tutus, sis.

There is nothing more beautiful than brand-new life.  Small and fragile.  So completely precious and perfect and lovely.  So totally written in the handwriting of a tender Creator who stoops down to fill our lives with awe, making hearts swell and eyes spill over with love and joy. 

A close second to that kind of gorgeous is the way a momma studies the face and feet and hands of this life she has felt moving and growing inside her.  There is nothing like meeting your baby for the first time.  It shifts your whole world.  No, it blows it up.  Expands.  Reshapes.  Fills in all the black and white with color.  (Gotta tell you, my bro, Jeremy is pretty wrapped.  Tegan, ask for the moon, sweet love.  Anything you want is yours.)

And sweet baby girl did not disappoint.  She completely slayed us. 

And I'm not sure how, but I know that so many little souls are born to mommas and families who don't want them.  Not you, sweet Tegan; you are embraced by all of us, with arms wide open, full of love.  You belong to our family.  And we so look forward to the ways you will change us forever.  The ways we will expand because of you.

In the same way Zai, Eden, Emery and Silas have changed us.  And yet in ways wholly your own, too.

 Swiped from my sister.  These two are besties, I tell you.  Nobody gets my girl like Isaiah.

 
It wasn't all that long ago we were welcoming and weaving their sweet new souls to into the fabric of "us."

Zai:

Eden:

Emery:

Silas:

And they so fit within our family that is seems they've never not been here, with us.  And I know I'm rambling a bit at this point but what else can you do when you've been a witness to love in it's purest, smallest form?  What else can you do but ramble and try in some way to capture what you've seen...and what the cursive from God's hand said?

Life was His idea.  And it is beautiful and fragile and small.  Sight was His idea, too.  I hope I never go blind to it's beauty.