Throughout our 18 years of marriage, our life has taken many different twists and turns. Four months ago, the twist we didn’t see coming came to fruition. God gave our family just what we didn’t know we needed—another baby!

Our family had been established for a few years already (or so we thought). We had a sixteen-year-old boy, a thirteen-year-old boy, a twelve-year-old girl, and a ten-year-old girl.  Throughout the years, we had given God many an opportunity to expand our family, yet in his wisdom, he had waited ten years. Last Christmas, six months after our family experienced a devastating miscarriage, we surprised our kids with the news that we were having a baby. Squeals of joy and anticipation filled the room as they realized our family would be expanding. After nine long months, the birth of Josie Mae filled our lives with more joy than we ever could have imagined. We have relished the sight of our older kids proudly filling their roles as big brothers and sisters with true tenderness, wonder, and love. Only a few days after bringing our daughter home, our sixteen-year-old son summed up what we were all thinking, “Mom, you know how you said everything would change when you had a baby? You didn’t say it would all change for the better!”

The birth of Josie has reminded me how much my heavenly father delights in me. At her birth, when they laid fresh, pink, and wrinkly Josie on my chest, my husband Chris, with tears in his eyes, marveled at her beauty. His love was instant and deeply rooted in the knowledge that she was his! Just as we are, from the moment of conception, our heavenly father’s.

As we navigate life with a baby again, older and wiser, we cherish these fleeting moments we have with her. When I witness the unconditional love between Chris and Josie (as I did with all our kids), it makes me fall in love with him all over again. Their love is evident when, at the mere sound of Chris’ voice, Josie’s grin is so big that her chubby cheeks squeeze her eyes shut. This is the kind of love I desire to have for my heavenly father. When he holds her in his arms and gazes into her sparkling hazel eyes, the love he has for her is palpable. In these precious moments, I am reminded that in my father’s eyes I am just as beautiful and lovable as Josie is to Chris.

Chris doesn’t know the choices she will make, or the mistakes she will learn from, or the pain she may cause him, yet he loves beyond measure, and even in her infancy, she knows his love. Think how much more our father in heaven must love us—he knows the choices we will make; he knows the mistakes we will learn from, and the pain we will cause him, and yet he still loves beyond measure!