Happy FIRST birthday, Daniel!

 

The day is here. Daniel Patrick Maggi. Born on January 17, 2011 at 2:21 p.m. weighing 7 pounds 1.5 ounces is ONE year old TODAY!

When Daniel came home from the hospital, he woke up around 3am. It was our first night home, and I gladly picked him up and brought him into the living to keep from waking Dennis.  The gas logs were burning, providing the only light in our middle-of-the-night living room. It caused his eyes to become bright and glassy. He looked at me with wide eyes, and I simply melted. For the first time it was he and I, alone, and I knew that I would forever be changed. I cried thanking God for this miracle he has so graciously given.

Being a first time mom is a hard thing. Everything seems a big deal, everything feels like it matters; almost like life or death. I learned, to pay attention to my baby, not books, not relatives, no one but Daniel. He and I broke a lot of “rules” this first year.

Having a child at home was music to deaf ears. The joy that he has brought to me has become yet another avenue to worship God. Daniel has pointed me to Christ, allowing me a multitude of reasons to thank him for his blessings, rely on Him for his grace, and give me yet another reason to get on my knees before Him; pleading that God would capture his heart early. I pray our Daniel loves God like Daniel of the Scriptures.

^{The next few quotes in italics are quoted from Stepping Heavenward a book written by Elisabeth Prentiss; a faithful wife and mother.}

_{"God never gives us hindrances. On the contrary, He means, in making us wives and mothers, to put us into the very conditions of holy living. But if we abuse His gifts by letting them take His place in our hearts, it is an act of love on His part to take them away or to destroy our pleasure in them. It is delightful...to know that there are some generous souls on earth who love their dear ones with all their hearts yet give those hearts unreservedly to Christ"}

_Beautiful.

_{"Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!"}

“I want to see little children adorning every home as flowers adorn every meadow and every wayside. I want to see them welcomed to the homes they enter, to see their parents grow less and less selfish and more and more loving because they have come. I want to see God’s precious gifts accepted, not frowned upon and refused.”

And from the Word of God: the all popular Deuteronomy 6:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Happy Birthday Daniel.

Love,

Mommy & Daddy