My Second Gift

Ten years ago today we were in a panic to start a quick unexpected move from Nicholasville, KY to Atlanta, Georgia.  Just a few weeks before we felt led by the Lord for Mike to finally submit his resume to a company in Atlanta.  They had been inquiring about his interest in a job with them for the past year, but we were just not interested in moving further south.  Then God suddenly and simultaneously changed our hearts on the matter.  It only took a few weeks for him to apply be interviewed and granted the job.  Suddenly I was uprooting my Pampered Chef business again and trying to find a home and a teaching job in the suburbs of Atlanta.

In the previous few months God has also been working on changing our hearts on another matter:  children.  Lainey had unexpectedly come along just a year into a our marriage.  I had worried before marriage that it would not be easy for me to have children, just as it had been for my mother.  God proved me wrong by blessing us with pregnancy just three months later.  We were surprised, but thrilled.  About six months after her birth we talked about trying to have another child.  Mike really wanted to have a boy since he is the only male Pfister in about four or five generations.  We had decided to let the number of children be up to God, so we were not exactly not trying anyway.  Unfortunately, that decision was tested when we could not seem to get pregnant.  After a couple of years we investigated using fertility treatments, but God woke us up when the McCaughey septuplets were born.  They were using the same treatment that our doctor had recommended.  We decided to be happy with one child.   Well, that is what we decided and said, but it was not what was in our hearts.  We both pined for another child.  It took four more years for God to truly convince us to let it be up to Him. 

In the spring of 2000 I finally gave it up.  To symbolize my surrender, I held a garage sale.  I sold everything, but a few mementos.  I made about $350.  I gave a few things away also.  I thought Mike was there with me, but it took him a few more months.  In the mean time we moved to Suwanee, Georgia a suburb of Atlanta.  Lainey was in first grade at a Christian school where I taught in the afternoons.  I also taught at a preschool three days a week in the mornings.  I had taken a sabbatical with Pampered Chef, but my time was almost up.  I was so busy that I could not bear the thought of adding one more thing, so we decided to not restart the business.  It was about that time that Mike told me of his struggle with our not being able to have more children.  God had been dealing with him on the issue and he had finally given it over in to the Lord's hands with his heart.


I have finally reached my point.  Just a few weeks later, while trying to get ready for work, I felt nauseous.  I remembered the feeling, but was sure that it could not be.  Oh, but it was.  The week of Thanksgiving we found out that we were to have a child.  We were astonished.  God had chosen to bless us again.  Moriah Elise Pfister arrived into our arms nine years ago today, July 29, 2001.  We could not imagine the joy she has brought into our lives. 

We chose to name her Moriah after my mother Mary and after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  It means the Lord is my teacher and the Lord is my provider.  We chose Elise because it is my sister's middle name and means dedicated to God.  A few years ago we discovered that according to the Hebrew calendar Moriah was born on the 9th of Av which is a very significant day.  Both the First Temple and the Second Temple were destroyed on that day (a few hundred years apart).  God planned this a bit of significance into her birth, because only He could do it, just like only He could bless us with her life. 

Happy 9th Birthday, Moriah!