It’s hard to tell when you are nesting if you are a natural nester, but I think nesting has begun. We are in the preparation stages for welcoming our newest little man, Phin Joshua, into our world. Washing little tee tiny onesies, trying to mentally prepare for cloth diapers again, packing bags and making arrangements for big brothers!

G took Ty on a special five-year old trip to Houston to visit his family and do “big boy things,” like work out at the gym and relax in the hot tub afterwards. Ty told me, “My muscles were burning we worked so hard.” He even got to sit in the cockpit of the plane and play with all the buttons and gadgets, thanks to a dear friend from church!

I got to stay home and have a “Bye Bye to Being the Baby Weekend” with Eli J. Included in his chosen agenda of never-ending activities were a trip to Michael’s, a special date at the zoo, making pudding, getting a movie from Red Box, and overall, wearing his pregnant momma out with his incessant chattiness. My boy loves to talk nonstop when he it getting quality time; we have no idea where he gets it!

Dear friends from our church hosted a ladies night out shower for me and little Phin. We were blown away at how graciously God has provided such a rich community in so short a time. All good gifts (and precious new baby clothes) come down from above from the Father of lights!

But most of all, we have been trying to mentally and spiritually prepare for adding another little soul into our home. While we have been making space in his tiny little nursery and rearranging furniture to make room for the plethora of paraphanalia that comes with a newborn, my heart has been busy trying to clear out clutter and concerns to make space for another little one to love, trying to clear out time in the busyness of life to enjoy a new baby on the way.

I find myself walking into his little nursery at least once a day, wondering what else I can do to get everything just right for him. Maybe the nursery needs a candle? Maybe we need another swaddling blanket? Maybe we don’t have enough socks? I just want everything to be just right for him, I cannot help it. I want him to know he is expected and known and loved already, that there is room here for him, a place prepared just for him uniquely.

In the midst of all of this, I was studying Malachi. What blew me away and brought tears to my eyes was a verse or two in chapter 3. Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament, the last words from God through a prophet for over 400 years until John the Baptist shows up on the scene to prepare the way for Jesus. There is a lot of correction in Malachi, a lot God was trying to communicate to His wayward people who kept missing the point. A theme of Malachi is the people, the religious people, the godly people, the people with had the “right answers” asking “How?”.  How have You loved us? How have we hurt You? How have we abandoned Your ways? They were so full of self-sufficiency and self-righteousness that they were blinded to their audacious questioning of God and His Words.

But as always, God does not leave it there. He gives a precious promise to hold his loved, albeit entitled people over through the half-century of silence that is coming.

“They will be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts, “on the day that I prepare My own special treasure, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.” Malachi 3:17.

God was making preparations for His own special treasure, His perfect Holy son, His only son. He had been since before time began. But God wasn’t washing onesies and buying lovies and making plans to make His life as comfortable as possible, He was planning His rejection, false accusations, betrayal, and death on a miserable cross.

Why? Why would a Father make such painstaking preparations for His beloved and perfect child? He did that for me, for us, His entitled, sin-blinded, self-sufficient, audacious, and wayward adopted children.

I was blown away as I walked into Phin’s nursery that morning. Here I am making preparations and buying wipes and diapers and cute clothes for my son who I am just gushing with love for, though I have yet to meet him. Yet God, the perfect Father, made preparations for Jesus to be punished and hated and rejected and ultimately abandoned by Him so I could be called His.

I am so thankful for a God who made such preparations for His special treasure that I might be a special treasure, that Phin Joshua Joseph might be a special treasure.