Brynn is SIX

My original plan was to not have kids. I was an ambitious 7 year old, and I knew that being the first female President was going to be consuming enough without throwing in a family. Then later, when the hubs and I simultaneously reached the age of accountability and got married, we agreed that ministry would be easier without kids. I tell you what, nobody knows more than a couple of 18 year olds with wedding rings and a bank account.

A couple of years later we found out we were pregnant (well, I was) and threw that whole plan out, gleefully. Then I had R2, the twins, and then Toby. Every pregnancy, I was sure I was having a girl, and I would name that girl Caitlyn Bryn. So by the time I got pregnant with my 5th baby, I had decided that I only had boys and I was trying to figure out how to name my son after Smith Wigglesworth without naming him Smith Wigglesworth. AND THEN IT WAS A GIRL. Let me tell you how long it took me to decide to name her Brynn. No long, that's how long. 8 years of writing down that name and I finally had my shot. We changed the other name to Kathryn in honor of Kathryn Kuhlman, but Brynn stuck.

I made it to 29 weeks with Brynn, and it was a hard fight. As soon as I had her in my hands, everything changed. There is something so elementally different about a girl, and not just the stereotypical things, although she is awfully stereotypical. There is a fragility in Brynn, a thin veil between her skin and the eternal. She feels, she sees, she knows. It's a strange quality, this iron core of her will and intentions wrapped in an eggshell of passion and emotion and depth. She's beautiful and compassionate and stubborn and sweet.

She is so made of strength. When she was born she was 2 lbs, 12 oz and not much more than a foot long, but she exuded strength. I leaned on that strength for the 2 months it took her to grow enough to come home and then I leaned on it when she would push her tiny frame to crawl, to walk. Now I run headfirst into that strength on a daily basis as she exerts her independence, which I am equally proud of and terrified by. Her humor and her confidence are a strength to me. She gives me such joy.

Last night I crawled up in her bunk to have our ceremonial "last-night-you-are-5" talk, and she told me all the things she planned on doing when she was six. At the top of the list was being much, much taller. She giggled and she planned, and I laid beside her, soaking in the end of five, watching her talk and knowing that she is changing, she is growing.

Whoever she will be, whatever she will do, I am confident in who she is. What a gift my girl is to me.