It's a Boy!

Well, it's official, we are having our 3rd boy! He should arrive sometime between February 4th and 10th, but with our history, he's likely to be a New Year's baby. Some of you who visit this blog from time to time,may be friends of ours in "the real world" (as opposed to this virtual one). You will know that we may have hoped for a little girl, but another boy is, without a doubt, no disappointment! As a man subject to our culture, and heir to the majority of cultures preceding ours, I am proud to pass on my name and the name of my physical forefathers. So in that respect, I would much rather be in the position of already having been blessed with male heirs and hoping for a girl, than already having been blessed with girls and hoping for a male heir to carry on my family name. Don't get me wrong, someday we would love a little girl with all our hearts, if God blessed us with one. Perhaps the means of that blessing would be through adoption...who knows what the Lord of Creation has in store?

Those of you who know us, probably know some of our family histories which have provided a great number of boys, on both mine and Melissa's side of the family. Melissa's dad, a Spencer, is the oldest of five boys, and I am the oldest of three. So whether or not those statistics factor into the Punit Square and make it more probable for us to have boys, I can't say with any scientific certainly. One thing is for sure, neither my wife nor our parents expected the baby to be girl.

We are now in the process of choosing a name. At least we only have to make one list, boy names. I may post some of our ideas in later articles; with our first two, we tried to choose names that would be significant. Our first, was named after a friend of mine from college who died about eight years ago. His mother is, of course, the adopted grandmother of all our children and we greatly appreciate her generous spirit. We gave our second, Melissa's maiden name, my middle name (which, by the way was my father's and his father's middle name) and Levi for purely aesthetic reasons. At the time of his birth,we thought he would be our last for sure, so we tried to get all the names in we could.

Prayers are always appreciated, and especially during our pregnancies. They always seem to be particularly difficult on her physically, but I won't go into detail about that...some of you already know . And after the baby is born, we will renew our concern for raising all our children in covenant with God. Fully aware of how imperfectly we do it, we are very grateful for the great influences God had in place for us just before our oldest was born (now 6); and for all the subsequent help provided to us from our parents and families; the encouragement provided by our friends; and most of all, God's gracious mercy to show us our sin through the Law, and to make us His sons and daughters by faith, through the power of Christ's Spirit in the proclamation of the gospel. May Melissa and I correct our children (and ourselves) with the Law of God and quickly proclaim the gospel of God's grace to them, for His glory and for our joy, Amen!