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Veneration for the Ones Who Bring Life
My wife’s birthday is on December 16 and every year I ask her for a list of things she’d like or could use. She avoids the question a few times, but eventually gives me a few ideas. I get her what she needs, and try to surprise her with some things I think she’ll like. The latter end up as failures pretty often but I try. She’s always gracious about it but doesn’t usually like surprises. She’s a planner. She doesn’t like uncertainty.
This year her birthday is all about uncertainty. She’s fabulously pregnant, due any day now. She may end up sharing her birthday with our newest son. This will be her seventh pregnancy. She amazes me. The creation known as woman amazes me. God amazes me.
This has been a hard pregnancy. It came on the heels of some major life upheavals, and she’s had to endure all of that, alongside all of this. But through it all my wife has published two books, homeschooled our seven kids, attended early morning meetings she didn’t want to be at, counseled friends and strangers, edited all of my writings (except for this one, so if you find any typos, that’s all me), endured the toddler, managed crisis after crisis, and a thousand other things.
So when I got a writing assignment on the topic of veneration, all I could think of was her. God chose women as the life bringers and filled them up with reserves of strength I am continually awed by. I hope my wife will not have to share her birthday. Hopefully, by the time you read this, she will be enjoying the sweet satisfaction of the greatest surprise birthday gift of her life. And this time I know she will adore it because it was given by someone who knows her much better than I, someone who understands sacrificial giving, and love, and of giving your all so that others may have life.
Published in Group Writing
This post seems to me to be a perfect birthday present for your wife!
Happy Birthday, Happy Baby.
Lovely post!
“Endured the toddler”….ha ha! So true!
Congratulations in advance, and what a great post!
And I’d say she’s pretty lucky in her choice of husband.
My twin brother and I were born on our mother’s birthday. She always said we were the birthday present she ever had.
I have a cousin who was born on his mother’s birthday. It always seemed really special to me. Wait, I didn’t know you were a twin!
What an awesome tribute!
I think you are both very blessed, as are your children.
Absolutely lovely.
My life isn’t exactly littered with accomplishment, but being pregnant, giving birth and enduring toddlers (not to mention teens) are the ones I’m proudest of. They’re on the top of my list of talking points should I have to make my case at the pearly gates.
Happy birth day to your wife and soon to be born little one
Well I wouldn’t say that!
Happy and blessed birthday and new arrival! (My brother-in-law and his oldest son share a birthday, too.)
Yeah, come to think of it the teen is probably harder. All of the drama with none of the cute.
And with toddlers, I enjoyed a weight advantage. Good times …
Excellent!
How wonderful, Vince! Blessings to your wife and new baby, plus of course all the siblings he or she shall be surrounded by. What a lucky little creature to have such a mom, and a dad who venerates her. A life beginning doesn’t get better than that.
Venerating mothers in the month when carolers sing of a “mother and child” in a silent night.
This conversation is part of our Group Writing Series under December’s theme of Veneration. There are plenty of dates still available. Have you had an encounter with a saint, or someone who is truly venerable? Is there a sports figure who you believe is venerated, and what do you think of it? What is venerated in our society today? We have some wonderful photo essays on Ricochet; perhaps you have a story to tell about nature, art, or architecture that points to subjects worth venerating. Have we lost the musical, written, visual language of veneration? The possibilities are endless! Why not start a conversation? Our schedule and sign-up sheet awaits. As a heads-up, our January theme will be Renovation. I’ll post the sign-up sheet mid-month.
Exactly. I have always said that there is nothing that could ever top being a mother. It is exhilarating, and exhausting simultaneously. I also say that the reason we are pregnant for nine months is so that we’ll do anything–even labor–just so we don’t have to be pregnant any more!!
I love our five children more than I could ever express. Now that they are all older than I was when I birthed them, it feels a little weird. I want them to know what awesome adults they are, but I also want to jump right in there and fix everything for them. Which would be just so wrong. And they would rebuff me immediately. Not that they need anything fixed…
You have an amazing wife!! Go Her!! Have that baby!! It’s a total gift from God. And what an amazing time of year to do it.
I bet you she’d say it wasn’t luck, but a well-orchestrated scheme to bag a man whom she knew was a winner . . .
Not intending to derail the post; but this is what passes for accomplishment these days
Last night we were at some friends for a Christmas celebration. While there I had some communication from my Canadian cousins that their mother is failing
I knew one brother was at his mother’s and decided to call him. As he answered the phone and we began to talk I walked out the sliding glass doors for some privacy. As I did I was enthusiastically greeted by a 100 lb Rhodesian who caught me right in the chest. I flew into the pool but landed upright, and with the exception of a loud expletive, didn’t lose a beat in the conversation. My phone, vape and (most importantly) hair all survived the experience.
Been bragging about it since …
I’m delighted you survived! You do have your moments Annefy. <grin>
What a terrific post! And happy birthday post-facto/in advance to Mrs. Guerra and Baby Guerra respectively.
Ha! And I thought my life was an episode of I Love Lucy.
He’s here, and he’s ready to watch the Chiefs on Sunday night.
Look at that smile! Congratulations
Beautiful!
What a heart-stealing, handsome lad! Welcome! Congratulations and prayers, Vince, Mrs. G., and Li’l G! Go, Chiefs!
Hurray for little VG Junior!
Yaay, happy baby! 👶
In love with him already.
Love the “touchdown baby” pose! Thanks for posting the pic Vince! May the Lord bless and protect the whole Guerra family!