Running and Enthusiasm...

It's amazing to me how the meaning of a name can literally be the description of the person.

So it is with Rhys.

Running.  Enthusiasm.

All day, I've done nothing but relive the months leading up to Rhys.  Not really his pregnancy.  More the time we spent in almost total chaos after I quit my job.  When we followed God's command to me to "move."  

God reminded me of Abraham.  "The Lord had said to Abram, 'Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you.'" ~ Genesis 12:1

Hebrews 11:8 says, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going."

When I left my job, we, in faith, left behind not only my salary and our dreams for retirement but the infertility insurance.  The insurance we were counting on to help grow our family.  God clearly revealed to me that insurance was never meant for us.  And I was okay with that.  

But then Chris got a new job.  We sold a house.  Lost a house.  Moved into an 863 square foot apartment.  Filled with the cigarette smoke of the upstairs neighbor.  To move to another 863 sq ft apartment.  Looked at 60 plus houses.  And finally found one we both liked and could afford.  We left our church.  Our newly wed Sunday School class.  Our ladies' bible study.  Our infertility support group.  

I felt very much like a foreigner in another country, missing my people and even further isolated from our family.

And I questioned if we would ever have another child.  No insurance and the move, new house and new city depleted most of what we had saved.  I told anyone who asked about more children, it would take an absolute miracle.  

Thinking through all of that today, I realized we lived a crazy nine months.  

Wait.

Nine months?

So I went back and looked.  

Not only was it nine months but it was 40 weeks.  Almost to the day.  From my last day of work until the night we got a positive pregnancy test.

40 weeks.

Then I looked at the house.  From the end of the option period, when the house was ours, baring anything catastrophic, to that positive test, 40 days.

40 days.

God had a plan.  In His perfect timing.  

Rhys' life verse, Hebrews 12:1-2 fit so perfectly for him but also for our life.  We are running, with endurance, the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus.

Several weeks ago, Rhys was running laps around the house.  Homeboy has energy that needs to be expended.  We asked him, "Rhys, what are you doing?"  He stopped, looked up and said, "Runnin!"  

Clearly.  

He's runs towards life.  Determined, analytical, fearless and joyful.  He observes every situation, learns what he feels is necessary and then, simply, dives in.  When he sees a new task, he completely believes he will accomplish what he decides to do.  If that's climbing a ladder, getting out of a wrestling hold or putting on his sister's leggings, it doesn't really matter.  He judges the situation and then makes it happen.

He has much to teach me.  

I see our journey to and with him reflected in his personality.  We heard God's calling, observed and analyzed the possibilities and then stepped out to do it.  Those 40 weeks before we knew there was a Rhys were filled with insane situations.  Fear, uncertainty, doubt.  We had those in spades.  

But we ran the race.  And we continue to run the race.  Cliche, but it's not a sprint, it's a marathon.  What's needed is the endurance to continue running.  

Rhys reminds me daily to fix my eyes on Christ and just keep running.  

Enthusiastically.