introducing: callista. (happy birthday, little one!)

Today is Callista's first birthday!  Time has flown.  I know I say it all the time, but I am just dumbstruck by how quickly it has gone.

This girl has been such a means of grace to me.  In some ways, she has been my most challenging baby, and yet she's somehow simultaneously so easy.  I have seen God provide the grace I needed to face each challenge this past year with patience and flexibility that I really didn't know I had.  Callista is a constant reminder that I need my children - I need them to push me, and grow me, and open me up to the supernatural work of the Spirit.  I need them to show me that God is not content to let me be my stinky old self, but wants to make me new - and has the power to do so.  I am different because I received her.

The Bible says that "Women... will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love and holiness, with self-control." When we let Scripture interpret itself, we understand that it doesn't refer to eternal salvation.  I really believe that childbearing - creating and nurturing new life - saves us from ourselves and our prideful patterns of self-centeredness and sin, because it pushes us to live in faith, love and holiness on a level that we wouldn't choose for ourselves otherwise.  I still have a long way to go before I 'arrive', but Callista has been such a means of grace to me, challenging my selfishness and self-centeredness and self-righteousness, and I am so thankful.

She is such a love.  She's a tiny nugget (I'm going to weigh her today, but I'm guessing she's around 15-16 pounds).  She's in six-month clothing, and size 3 diapers.  She has six teeth - her two front top teeth, plus one on the left side, and her two front bottom teeth, plus one on the right side!  Her lopsided grin melts me.

She's a total champ when it comes to eating - she ate almost two whole scrambled eggs in a sitting yesterday, and is finally starting to get the hang of drinking from a sippy cup.  She eats 2-3 table meals a day, and nurses 4-5 times still.  She is sleeping much better than she was - two naps per day, plus about 12 hours at night.

She is crawling and cruising.  She doesn't talk yet, but she'll mimic sounds and tones of voice.  She loves to fake laugh to get anyone in the general vicinity to laugh back at her.  She hates to be far from me, and unless she's eating, she doesn't like being put down for very long while awake.

She is so very, very loved around here.  Rocco and Penelope are especially adoring fans.

I don't know how we lived without her.  She is so cuddly and sweet and beautiful.

My prayer for her is that she would continue to grow up strong, happy, healthy and safe.  I pray she would always know how precious she is, and how she has felt like such a gift from Day One.  I pray she would never feel overlooked or lost in the crowd of kids, but that she would know that she's always been loved as an individual.  I pray that she would grow to know and love Jesus, and that she would be brave enough to live a life in pursuit of him.  What I want most for her is that she would rest absolutely confident in his love for her and his purposes for her life.

"Callista" means beautiful - the kind of majestic, all-surpassing beauty that makes someone feel immediately awestruck and grateful in its presence.  "Awestruck" and "grateful" are two perfect words to describe how I feel being her mom, and I pray for so many days with her, getting to know her better and love her more and more each day.

Happy birthday, Lissa Lou!  We love you so much!