Mwaiseni Kuli Umwanakashi Konono Yandi "Welcome to my little girl"

Claire Elizabeth Kizziah

Born: September 24, 2009 at 6:01 am (central).... right on time (her due date)

Weighing in at: 7 lbs, 8 oz and 19 1/2 inches long

Let me start off by saying that this post is written by David. As I type Katie is hopefully in her hospital room with her mother and daughter recuperating from giving birth to Claire this morning. I pray that the tri-generational bonding will bring much joy to each involved. I am with John David at home. We thought it might be good for him to be with at least one of us tonight in his normal bed since he has had to deal with so much change so quickly today. Let me just say that, by the grace of God, he has done marvelously. I will leave it to Katie to describe to you in a later post just how well he has done in being sweet to his sister and sharing our affections with her today. We pray that today will be only a beginning of a wonderful sibling adventure that is characterized by mutual love and self-denying service to one another. Again, this will be for Katie to tease out.

 I have a three fold purpose in this post. First, I want to introduce to all of you our precious daughter, Claire Elizabeth. We took some far superior pictures than this one today but this is the only one at my disposal as I type. So, here she is!

Second, I wish to use this post as one way to express our thankfulness to the Father and gratitude to all of our friends and family for praying for us and supporting us in a myriad of ways throughout this second pregnancy and birth. We are royalty when it comes to friends and family; we are very rich. It thrills our hearts to be loved by so many so deeply. 

Finally, I simply wanted to marvel publicly at the work of our God, hence the name of this post. I believe there are some things so beautiful that it is almost defamation to use common language to describe those things. Indeed some things are so dazzling that expression of the worth of that object can only be adequately achieved by employing another language. I believe this is what Wesley meant when he said, "O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise... " In other words there are some things that are so uncommonly beautiful (ex: the glory of Christ) that we need language that we do not commonly use to properly hail its worth. This is the case with the birth of my daughter today. It was a glorious event. It was strikingly beautiful. It caused me to want to praise my God in language I do not employ everyday since I do not have a daughter born to me every day.

I grasped at the only language other than English I know (ciBemba) for the simple fact that I do not use this language every day. I do not see beauty like I saw today everyday and I felt that I needed words to match the uncommonness of the occasion. Today I saw the beauty of the self-effacing love of a mother for her child at the pinnacle. On my wedding day in May of 2005 I knew that I loved Katie with a love that would die one million deaths over facing the possibility of being separated from her. I did not think that love for her could ever be expanded. I was wrong. On May 31, 2007 it was expanded as I saw her lovingly give of herself in order to bring my son into the world. It has since then been expanded over and over again as I have witnessed first hand the daily sacrifices that must be made by a mother who hopes to see Christ formed in her children. This is my daily view of Katie and it is beautiful. Today, however, the boundries were again expanded as I journeyed with Katie in the birth of our girl. Jesus said that the top shelf love was that love that was willing to lay down its life for someone else. This is the love a mother has as she "labors" to bring her children into the world. This is the love I witnessed from my bride today and it was beautiful.

It was also beautiful to see my image reflected in the face of a little human. It was beautiful to think of the great lengths God has gone to so that our perfect reflection of Him might be restored. It was beautiful and awesome (in the truest sense of the word) to ponder the responsibility given to me and Kate as the primary disciplers of this new being. It was beautiful to think through the gravity of the fact that though God could have picked any time in history across any geographical locale to place Claire He chose us in this time. Basically, today was beautiful and for that I say, "Natulumbanyeni Lesa!"(Let us praise God!)