prologue: isaac's birth story

Here is what I know so far:

We get what we need, whether we want it or not.

***

My dad loves to tell the story of how, on my first day of kindergarten, when the teacher called for everyone to form a line, I stepped up and began bossily arranging my fellow pint-sized classmates into order. My dad gestures broadly when he recounts how I would grab their shoulders and line them up straight.

I'm a smidge embarrased for that well-meaning but totally oblivious little girl. Mostly because all these years later I still recognize parts of myself in her self-assured playground tyranny.

She was in charge, in control and in pursuit of perfection.

Fast forward twenty years and you'd find me in a career that made it kosher for me to (nicely) boss people around. Event planners are a tightly wound bunch, obsessed with control, details and perfection. Is it any wonder that I thrived in that job?

Clearly, I was doomed from the start - before sperm met egg, before I tossed out my birth control pills, heck - even way before I ever set eyes on my husband. My tightly monitored, immaculately organized fate was sealed and I had no idea.

***

I thought I understood why I named my son Isaac.

I've come to believe there is another, less obvious reason - unknown to me at the time we gave him his name, but slowly revealing itself as our life with him unfolds.

In the days after he was born, the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac was constantly on my mind. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. To let him go, no questions asked, no answers provided. To relenquish his hopes and plans, his dreams and expectations.

With unshakeable faith, Abraham placed it all on the altar.

To the parents of Isaac, God says:

Let go. My ways are higher that your ways. Trust me instead.

***

Here is my pregnancy story, Isaac's birth story.

A story about fear, a story about love,
And a story about how I got what I needed.


Click here to read the next installment: Isaac's Birth Story: Part One